


Sacrifice

by ibohemianam



Series: Chaconne [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Rogue One, Pre-Rogue One, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8875372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibohemianam/pseuds/ibohemianam
Summary: The Cassian Andor backstory ft. the Damerons and Bail OrganaThe Latest:Cassian meets Bail Organa, and it's a study in regret.Spoilers noted before each chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers for Rogue One.

He woke screaming in the night, flashes of fire raging behind his eyelids, the shriek of blaster fire ringing in his ears.

The night welcomed him coldly, without affection, meting judgement where judgement was due.

“Cass?” his bunkmate mumbled, “‘lright?”

“I’m fine,” he choked, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, “Sorry.”

There was a rustling of sheets below him, and a lean, dark shadow activated the cabin lights.

“I’m fine,” Cassian rasped, “Go back to sleep.”

Kes Dameron’s dark head appeared above the foot of his bed.

“Well,” he grunted, scratching at the stubble on his chin, “It’s not like I’ll be able to with you doing Mos’s can-cantina two meters from my face.”

“Kes, come on,” Cassian insisted, “What are you doing?”

Kes ignored him, leaning back against the wall and stretching out across the top bunk, long legs hanging well over the edge. Cassian curled into himself, shrinking from contact and rolling away onto his side.

“Shara told me a little of what happened,” Kes said, after a period of silence.

He could feel Kes’s gaze on him.

“Don’t do this, Cass,” his best friend hissed, “You can’t let it eat you up again.”

“I told you, I’m fine. Kriff off.”

“The last time you woke up screaming, you tried to throw yourself out an airlock, so forgive me for calling shavit.”

Cassian closed his eyes and sucked in a quiet breath.

“I’m not going to throw myself out of an airlock,” he said.

“Right.”

For a while, the only sound in the room was the distant thrum of the engines two decks beneath them.

“I’ve been thinking about building a house,” Kes said suddenly.

Cassian blinked.

“A house,” he repeated.

“Yeah, for Shara and me, after this is all over.”

“Why?” he blurted.

A brief hesitation.

“Well, you know, it might come as a bit of a surprise, but we’re sort of actually married. I mean, she is your cousin, and I’m pretty sure I saw you at the wedding, or did you just send some droid to stand in as best man?” Kes waited for a response. When none materialized from the huddle of standard-issue sheets beside him, he continued, “Building a house, settling down--that’s just what you want to do when you’re married and disgustingly in love, I guess.”

“No,” Cassian said, still stubbornly staring at the wall opposite, “Why are you--” he stumbled, licked his lips, “How… Why are you making… plans?”

A longer hesitation.

“Because this’ll end eventually,” Kes replied.

“Yeah,” Cassian said, “It will.”

“This’ll end,” Kes pressed on, “And we’ll have the rest of our lives left to live and do what we want.”

“Yeah.”

“Cass--”

“--I killed a boy today.”

The ship’s engines thrummed.

Cassian swallowed violently.

“He couldn’t have been older than five or six Standard. Wasn’t even up to my waist. Small, he was so small, with those big eyes.” He drew tighter into himself. “I wasn’t even supposed to be there, but my ship got caught up in the crossfire, and I ended up in the middle of an emergency evacuation on the east side of the capitol. Troopers--everywhere. There was so much fire, and he couldn’t keep up, so I pushed him down behind some crates, and he was so light, so small, so quiet. I stood over him and waited for the next U-wing, screaming that we were friendlies, that we needed transport. When the next transport landed, I just picked him up and ran. I carried him with one arm, and he didn’t make a sound. We made it to the ship, we were up and away, and I set him down, and it was only then that I realized that--” Cassian choked, voice breaking, “--that his neck was broken. He was so small, Kes. He was so small I didn’t know what I was doing. Now tell me, if this ever ends, if this is all ever over, what could I possibly want with the rest of my life?”

The silence suffocated.

“Cass--” Kres began.

“--Kriff it,” Cassian snapped, flinging off the covers and slipping from the bed, dashing a hand across his eyes, “Kriff it, I can’t--I can’t--” he snatched his jacket from the bedpost and shoved his feet into his boots.

Kres leapt off the bed, blocking the doorway.

“Where’re you going?” he demanded.

“Out.”

Kres winced.

“The hangar,” Cassian amended tautly, “Go back to sleep.”

He shouldered Kres aside, smacked a hand on the door controls, and disappeared.

* * *

Cassian stormed down two flights of stairs to the hangar, restlessly beating his fingers against the butt of the blaster on his thigh as he went. He glanced down at his watch, almost certain he would have it to himself this time of the night.

He was mostly right, he decided, when he slammed the hangar doors open and startled the very green night sentry into a sloppy salute which he summarily ignored, striding to the nearest ship, a battered A-wing with faded Republic insignia. He palmed open the cockpit, activating the diagnostic pad that sat inside. After a quick glance, he slid out back to the ground, rummaging through the box of tools that sat on a nearby trolley.

So engrossed he became in his tinkering with an aging fuel injector, jacket slung over the trolley, shirtsleeves rolled past the elbow, that he didn’t notice when the hangar door opened quietly behind him and soft footsteps approached.

“Captain Andor,” came a mild voice.

Cassian startled badly, dropping the wrench he had been holding and reaching for his blaster in the same movement.

“Senator Organa,” he rasped, freezing when he recognized who was staring him down with enviable calm from the wrong end of a blaster, “I apologize. You startled me.”

“The fault is mine,” Bail Organa replied easily, lowering both hands as Cassian re-holstered his blaster with trembling hands, “I shouldn’t have assumed you’d heard me enter.”

Cassian bent down to scoop up the wrench, stiffly tossing it back onto the trolley.

“What brings you down here at this hour, Senator?” he asked.

“Much the same as you, I think,” Senator Organa replied with a slight tilt of the head.

Cassian blinked again and realized the man before him was wrapped in a scruffy dressing gown, dark circles under his eyes, greying hair tousled and unkempt.

“Ah,” he supplied intelligently.

“I see you’re working on my ship,” Senator Organa gestured at the A-wing, sticking his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown and slowly shuffling around to the cockpit, “I didn’t realize you were as handy with a wrench as a blaster.”

“It’s just a hobby,” Cassian replied, “A way to, ah, keep my hands busy.”

“Ah, yes,” Senator Organa said, climbing up and perching on the edge of the open cockpit, “but the mind is a different matter, isn’t it?”

Cassian didn’t respond, wiping his hands on the hem of his shirt.

“I knew someone who was much the same,” Senator Organa said conversationally, absently looking over the diagnostics pad, “Always tinkering with the ‘ships, especially those that belonged to someone else.”

Cassian stood by uncertainly.

“I was at the Jedi Temple the night that it fell,” Senator Organa continued, easily, “All the padawans--the apprentices--children, really.” Ruthlessly. “I watched them die.”

Cassian swallowed, feeling trapped.

“And I did nothing about it. I could have stopped them. I could have saved even just the one. But I didn’t. I just turned around, got into my ship, and left. ” the senator paused, “It’s been nearly twenty years.”

“How do you--” Cassian choked.

Senator Organa shook his head, shoulders heavy.

“You don’t forget, you don’t move on,” he said quietly, “You take those memories, those images, those sounds, the guilt, you take those, and you hold them tight, and eventually, you find that they give you a greater strength, a greater determination to _fight_ than you ever had before.”

Cassian bowed his head.

“Cassian,” Senator Organa said.

Cassian jerked his head up, meeting the senator’s blurred gaze through stinging eyes.

“Yes, Senator,” he rasped.

“Sacrifice is something I think we both understand,” he said, “It can be much easier to lose a life than take one. A relief, to some.”

Cassian clenched his jaw.

“But a life is worth more than any of us could possibly imagine, Captain Andor. Don’t you dare sell it cheaply.”

Cassian licked his lips, swallowed.

“I understand.”

Senator Organa nodded briskly, clambering nimbly down from the cockpit. He approached Cassian slowly, hands stuffed once again into the pockets of his dressing gown.

“The Alliance will not forget your sacrifice,” he said quietly.


	2. Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS FOR ROGUE ONE
> 
> Two years after the end of the Galactic Empire, a young Poe Dameron learns about Cassian Andor.
> 
> NOTE (4/17): This is the only chapter in the _Chaconne_ series that is strictly canon--i.e. everyone's dead. Feel free to skip this chapter if you're reading through this just for the series.

Night fell softly on Yavin 4, stealing through the trees, welcoming shy creatures with glowing eyes out of their lonely burrows and sending little boys late for dinner scurrying back to their homes.

Poe Dameron, all of six Galactic Standard and very small, clambered down from his little hide in the trees and tore through the dense undergrowth towards the muted lights in the clearing ahead.

“I’m coming, Mom!” he shouted, just as the silhouette of Shara Bey appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips, “I’m here! Here!”

He skidded to a stop just in front of her, breathing heavily, dark eyes bright and smiling.

Shara heaved a small sigh, pressing her lips together in an expression Poe knew meant she was trying not to laugh. They stared at each other a moment, Poe grinning, Shara struggling to frown and failing miserably.

“Is Dad back yet?” Poe chirped, having long since learned that redirection was the best form of defense.

“He’s been back for half an hour, Poe,” Shara replied, reaching for admonishing and falling firmly into exasperation, “And dinner is getting cold.”

“Sorry!” Poe cocked his head, peeking around his mother into the house.

Kes Dameron leaned around the door and wiggled his eyebrows. Poe burst out laughing, darting past his mother into the cool shelter of the home his father had built by hand.

“Poe…” Shara began, then sighed, turning and following him with a long-suffering eyeroll.

“Hi Dad!” Poe hollered, climbing into Kes’s arms, “Where’ve you _been_? I was looking all over for you, but Mom said you had to go do some important stuff somewhere and not to expect you back until tonight, but it’s not like there’s anything to do around here, it’s just trees and trees and more trees and maybe some rocks somewhere.”

Kes settled back down at the dinner table with a grunt, Poe bouncing on one leg. He arched an eyebrow at Shara, who raised her arms in mock helplessness and sat down across from him.

“I was down in town looking for some trader to take you off my hands,” Kes growled, poking Poe in the stomach.

“Really?” Poe giggled.

“No, you gundark,” Kes smiled, drowning a hunk of flatbread in Shara’s homemade Alderaan stew, “I was down at the old base.”

Poe stilled, chewing quietly on a mouthful of kebroot.

“Is anything still there?” he asked, looking from his father to his mother and back again, “I thought everyone moved to Hoth after you guys blew up the Death Star.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing much left,” Kes replied, sharing a quick glance with Shara, who had one finger absently twirling a stray lock of hair.

“Then why’d you spend the whole day there?” Poe continued curiously, kebroot forgotten.

Kes gently shifted Poe into his own chair, taking a moment to wash down the flatbread with a large gulp of Chibrak wine. He and Shara shared another look.

“Do you know where Scarif is?” Kes asked his son.

Poe screwed up his face, saying, “Isn’t that somewhere in the Outer Rim?”

“Yeah,” Kes replied, hesitating, an uncharacteristically somber expression flitting across his face.

“You know that Dad and I were at here when the Death Star was destroyed,” Shara said, stepping in.

“Yeah,” Poe nodded, a proud grin on his face.

“Do you know how we destroyed the Death Star?” Kes continued, with a quick look across the table.

“Well, _yeah_. General Skywalker flew into the exhaust port and blew out the main reactor! And then Han Solo and the Millennium Fal--”

“--but how did they know to do that, do you know?”

Poe cocked his head.

“They had plans or something, right?”

“That’s right,” Kes said heavily, sitting back in his chair, dinner forgotten, “They’d had plans.”

Poe, worried and confused, looked again from his father to his mother and back again.

“Did you guys get the plans from Scarif?” he asked slowly.

“The plans did come from Scarif,” Shara replied, “But your dad and I weren’t the ones that sent them to the Alliance.”

“We weren’t there,” Kes said hollowly. Shara reached out across the table and put a hand on his arm.

“Well, why not?” Poe asked, head swivelling around again, “And why haven’t you ever told me about Scarif? It sounds really important.”

“I’d just had you,” Shara said quietly, “And your dad wanted to be with me.”

Poe sat and blinked.

“Oh,” he said.

Kes slowly raised his glass of Chibak to his mouth again.

“Not many people like to remember Scarif,” he said, setting the glass back down, empty, “In some ways, it was the Alliance’s greatest defeat.”

“Why?” Poe asked, confused again, “You guys got the Death Star plans, right?”

Kes spun his empty glass around by the stem.

“Because--” Kes began, then stopped, choked off the word, staring off out the window at the murky shadows beyond. Shara’s grip on his arm tightened.

“Many brave men and women became one with the Force on Scarif,” she said, drawing a deep breath and mustering a small smile, “Including your uncle.”

“I have an uncle?” Poe asked, wide eyes growing wider.

“My cousin, Cassian,” Shara said, “He was your uncle. He was also one of the leaders on Scarif.”

“And he died,” Poe finished.

Kes closed his eyes, aching with the casual familiarity in his son’s voice.

“He became one with the Force,” Shara corrected gently.

Poe peeked at his father again and, upon finding him lost in thought, turned back to his plate of kebroot, stabbing one with his fork. He ate quietly, and Shara watched his sensitivity with a quietly breaking heart.

“Can I…” Poe began, then paused, looking again at his father, who roused himself with a deep, heavy sigh, smiling crookedly down at him, “Can I know what he was like?”

Shara pressed her lips together, and Poe recognized this expression as one that meant she was trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry!” he said quickly, tears springing to his eyes, “You don’t have to talk about it! I’m sorry!”

“No,” Kes sighed, though it was more like a breath. He reached out and pulled Poe onto his lap again, holding him close. “We should be the ones saying sorry.”

“Cassian was just…”

“A very good man.”

“Like L’ulo?” Poe arched his back and craned his neck to look back at his father, who smiled a little.

“Yeah, a little like L’ulo.”

Poe reached out and snagged a stick of Oro bark from the plate on the table, secretly congratulating himself when his mother didn’t scold him.

“What did he do? Was he a pilot?”

“No,” Shara replied, looking quickly at Kes, “He was an intelligence officer.”

“An officer!” Poe chirped, latching onto the significantly easier topic of conversation, “Was he a lieutenant?”

“A captain,” Kes said proudly, “Captain Cassian Andor.”

“Wow!” Poe breathed, nibbling at his stick of Oro bark.

“He was my bunkmate in the early days when the Alliance had its base here on Yavin,” Kes continued, “A better man, a more _humble_ man you wouldn’t ever have found.”

Poe nibbled some more, dark eyes thoughtful.

“Is that why you went down to the base today?” he asked, “To talk to him?”

Shara and Kes shared a startled glance.

“I’ve seen other people do it before,” Poe continued, oblivious, “I think it’s to make them feel better.” He swallowed the rest of his Oro bark, thought about grabbing another one. “What’s it called when you have this place where you go and remember people who’re dead? Not a cemetery because they’re not actually there, but you can feel them there, kind of like the Jedi feel the Force… you know?” he trailed off uncertainly.

“A memorial,” Kes supplied quietly, “It’s called a memorial.”

“Yeah,” Poe said, “That’s it. Is there a memorial at the base? For all the people who died?”

“Not really, no,” Kes said, “It’s just a place some people like to go to pay their respects and… and talk.”

“Well, why not?” Poe pressed, “It used to be the Alliance's headquarters, right? Where else could you guys build a memorial? I don’t think anyone’d like to have one on Hoth.”

Kes swallowed.

“I think,” Shara said slowly, “Maybe in a few years, that could be something we’d like to do. But now…”

Poe dipped his head.

“You still miss him,” he said, “A lot.”

“We do.”

Poe studied his father’s smudged, empty wine glass.

“Dad?” he asked, curling up and leaning back into his father’s strong shoulder.

“Hmm?” Kes ran a hand through thick, dark curls.

“Next time you go talk to Uncle Cassian, can I come?”

Kes closed his eyes.

“Yeah,” he whispered, “Of course.”

Across the table, Shara bit her lip. Kes swallowed tears.

 

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“What was Uncle Cassian’s favorite color?”

“Mmmm… Must have been blue. A deep, rich blue.”

“Why?”

“He grew up by the sea.”

“Oh.”

  


“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“Did Uncle Cassian snore like you?”

“I’m sure he did.”

  
  
“Dad?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You asked for it.


	3. Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian's favorite color was blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Very) mild spoilers for Rogue One.

He grew up by the sea.

His father was a fisherman. His mother was a starship engineer. There used to be whispers about that at the village school, but everyone quickly discovered that Cassian Andor was a fighter.

Small and scrappy, he’d limped home more than once with sand up his trousers, sand in his hair, sand in his eyes, smudged and grey except for the burning in his eyes. His father scolded. His mother laughed and chased him out down the beach to the blue, blue water, snatching him up in her arms with a roar and dashing headlong into the sea that always returned what it took, washed clean.

The sea gave everyone identical tears.

Cassian loved the sea.

When the Empire came, his mother, with unfamiliar tears in her eyes, pushed him out to sea in his father’s boat and ran back up the beach to his father, who held a blast-harpoon in his hand and was still holding it the next morning when Cassian drifted back to shore and found him under the crumbled adobe walls of what might once have been their home. His mother he found several paces away in their bedroom, and the pale blue sky reflected in her eyes was only an empty imitation of an imitation.

He sat on the beach in the sunset and cried.

That night, he pushed his father’s fishing boat out to sea and by sunset exactly one week later was stowed away in the cargo hold of a Rebel ship bound for Fest, the last glimpse of his homeworld an ever-deep, constant blue.

And so when Kes Dameron, his new bunkmate, asked him, in a fleeting moment of ennui, what his favorite color was, he answered without thinking.

“Blue,” he said.

“Why?”

“I grew up with the sea,” he said, folding his arms behind his head, closing his eyes, and imagining the curve of the beach as it dissolved into the constant sea.

Yes.

  
The seas of Scarif had always been blue.


	4. Interlude I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath, an interlude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys. This is pre-Rogue One.
> 
> No spoilers.

In the fractured silence of the medbay, Shara sat on the side of Cassian’s medi-bed, brushing the hair out of his eyes.

 

She remembered the first time she saw him on Fest all those years ago, a predatory wariness in his eyes when he'd introduced himself as her cousin, as if, at any moment, she’d draw a blaster from under her nightgown and shoot him dead. They’d both been painfully young then, and she’d called for her mother, who’d shut the door in his face. From her bedroom window, she’d watched him leave, thin shoulders drawn back defiantly, shaking dark, curling hair out of his eyes.

In the years that followed, she’d secretly tracked the growth of the planetside resistance and known that, somehow, he’d been involved.

 

Looking down at him, she considered the strong lines of his jaw that matched her own, the sharp hollows of his cheeks, the stubborn chin, recently shaved with the morning’s addition of a pressure mask to help each breath struggle its way through his ragged lungs. There was a delicacy to his features that she lacked--something fine and fragile. He looked like he could be fourteen again here, swallowed up in a sea of bed sheets, stubbornly clinging to life.

 

Her parents fled Fest at the height of the civil war, but she stayed behind, determined, like so many young people, to fight the Empire to the bitter end. And so she’d joined the Atravis Sector Group, an astonishingly efficient coalition of rebels from the traditional enemies of Fest and Mantooine, and trained to be a pilot because everyone told her she couldn’t. Upon the completion of her training, she stood with her yearmates before the transport to the secret Alliance base and waited to meet with the unit commander to receive her personal assignment.

She recognized him immediately.

He quietly made his way down the line, shaking each of their hands, exchanging personal words of thanks, and sent them individually to meet with their new squadron commanders. When he reached her, he froze, brown eyes comically wide. She probably looked much the same.

“Shara?” he said.

“Cassian,” she replied, struggling and failing to hide a broad grin, “Sith, you got old.”

“Fark,” he said, matching her tooth for tooth.

The remaining graduates looked on with barely-contained curiosity.

He shook her hand vigorously, his smile, if possible, growing wider.

“Report to Captain Crynyd, Green Squadron,” he continued, “Congratulations, Sergeant Bey.”

 

A faint crease appeared between his eyebrows, and beside her, an unbandaged hand twitched fitfully. She shushed him with wordless murmurs, gently stroking his hair. He leaned into her touch, murmuring phrases in a language she’d long ago forgotten.

 

Later that afternoon, she received a private message from him on her new datapad asking if she’d have time to catch up over dinner.

He showed up outside her door just after sundown in battered leathers looking like he’d gone ten rounds with a Wookie, but then he smiled shyly at her, and the years melted away, leaving that same quiet, determined boy leading a rebellion standing on her parents’ front stoop.

“How’d you recognize me?” she asked over dinner in a deserted officers’ mess, “It’s been years and years.”

He smiled crookedly.

“I’d never forget your face,” he said with a distant sadness.

She paused, waiting for an explanation. He caught her watching and looked away.

“You look just like my mother,” he said quietly, but he used the Scryllic word for mother, tongue trilling lightly.

And there she had all she needed to know.

He must have seen the understanding in her eyes because he looked away again, scrubbing a hand across the coarse bristle of stubble on his cheeks.

“How are you settling in?” he asked, blatantly redirecting the conversation to safer waters.

“It’s... different here, that’s for sure,” she said, accepting his lead, “I’ve got to hand it to you and the council, though. No one, least of all the Empire, would think to look for us on Yavin, of all places.”

He smiled.

“At least it’s not Hoth.”

Her laughter was cut short by a shrill chirp from his comlink. His expression changed instantly, and the boy, her cousin, was gone. Captain Andor reappeared, eyes hardening, back straightening. He listened intently for a few moments and, with a terse, “I understand,” cut off the conversation.

“Shara, I’m sorry,” he apologized, climbing to his feet, “Duty calls.”

She stood as well, but he waved her back down.

“Privileges of rank,” he said quickly, which she later learned meant something definitely unsanctioned by the council was about to happen, “We’ll continue this later?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Later” turned out to involve an interval lasting two months, during which she discovered that Cousin Cassian, all twenty-two years of him, also happened to be one of the Alliance’s most respected intelligence officers.

She later learned that this meant he had probably killed more people than she’d ever care to imagine.

 

Cassian blinked blearily up at her, eyes dark with pain.

“Hey,” she whispered, cupping his cheek.

Cassian blinked again, slower, breathing shallow and labored. He reached out and clutched her hand.

“You’re fine,” Shara said, “You're home. Just rest.”

His eyes drifted shut again.

"Mother," he breathed.

Shara closed her eyes.

"Yes," she whispered, "I'm here."  



	5. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kes Dameron meets an Imperial security droid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers for Rogue One.
> 
> I should probably mention at this point that these chapters are in no way linearly related.

Two months after he met Cassian Andor, Kes Dameron entered their shared quarters one night and came face to faceplate with an Imperial security droid.

“Holy Sith!” he blurted, fumbling for his blaster with one hand, smacking the door controls open with the other, and hitting his head on the doorjamb as he staggered back out into the hall.

“Rebel forces must die,” the droid said from its seat on the floor, “Would you like some caf to go with that?”

“What!?” Kes yelped, blaster leveled and ready to fire.

“Please don’t shoot me,” the droid continued, “I used to be a cantina dancer. Would you like to see?”

“Kes, what--” a familiar voice came from the direction of the ‘fresher down the hall, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a stifled snort, “Kes, don’t shoot it. It won’t hurt you.”

Kes looked over his shoulder to see Cassian striding towards him, eyebrows raised. He didn’t lower his blaster.

“But it’s an--”

“--Imperial security droid, yes,” Cassian finished, plucking the blaster from his hands as he brushed past him into their quarters.

“But what’s it doing here? In our  _ room _ ?!” he stabbed a finger at the droid, which was waving its arms in a slightly drunken fashion, “ _ Dancing!? _ ”

“One of my men found it deactivated on a stolen Imperial ship,” Cassian replied, stepping over a tangle of cables that looped around the droid to a large, whirring computer that had, at some point during the day, materialized on the desk, “I thought it’d be worth a try to see what we can get from its memory banks.” He tossed Kes’s blaster onto his bed, “The dancing is an unfortunate side effect.”

Kes stepped gingerly into the room, skirting well around the droid to stand by Cassian, who was squinting at the lines and lines of green code that scrolled across the computer monitor.

“I had to merge its base programming with a C-3’s to keep it from, well…”

“...smashing us to pieces.”

“Yeah.” 

Kes warily reached behind the droid and snatched up his blaster, returning it securely to its holster. The droid, its head turned a disconcerting 180 degrees, watched him with unblinking white eyes, arms still swaying in time to an inaudible beat.

“Could you maybe get it to stop doing the can-cantina?” he asked, staring back.

“Mmm,” Cassian said, ignoring him entirely and entering what Kes had recently come to term Super-Secret-Concentrated-Spy Mode.

“Kriff,” he muttered, bending over and digging through the drawers beneath his bed for a fresh change of clothes and announcing, “I’m going to shower.”

Ten minutes later, he edged cautiously back into the room to find nothing changed. The security droid swiveled around to face him again, and he sighed, resigning himself to an uncomfortable night. He glanced at Cassian again and found him frowning at a few schematics up on the monitor.

“Hey, isn’t that--”

“--No.”

Cassian flicked off the monitor with a flick of his wrist, looking over at him sharply.

“Right.” Kes sighed, sinking onto his bed and pulling out his datapad, “I didn’t see anything.”

Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then looked up at the droid.

“You can stop that now,” he said.

The droid stopped, stared down at him, unblinking.

“Power down.”

The droid sat down with a thump, and its eyes flickered out.

“Well,” Kes said in the ensuing silence.

“It has to stay here for at least tonight,” Cassian said, ejecting a disk from the computer and adding it to the large stack on the table, “I can’t store it with the rest of the droids, for obvious reasons.”

“I’ve always wanted a murderous, dancing Imperial droid to watch me sleep,” Kes replied.

“Good,” Cassian snorted, gathering up the disks, “I need to report to the council. Whatever you do, don’t shoot it.”

“I can shoot it without destroying its memory banks, can’t I?”

The door wheezed shut in his face. 

He looked to the deactivated droid.

“I guess it’s just you and me.”

* * *

Kes shouldn’t have been surprised when he woke in the middle of the night to find himself face-to-face with a pair of glowing white eyes. But he was.

“Cassian!” he shouted, just before a massive, durasteel hand closed around his throat.

He scrabbled for his blaster, but it slipped from his hands as the droid yanked him out of bed, emotionless eyes unblinking.

“I liked you better as a cantina dancer,” Kes choked, head swimming.

The droid, unsurprisingly, did not respond, and tightened its grip.

Then it gave a sudden lurch, staggering forward as if struck from behind. Kes dropped to the ground with a thump and crawled on his hands and knees back to the bed, feeling around for his blaster.

“Don’t shoot it!” Cassian shouted from somewhere above him. The droid stumbled around, hands clawing at its back as if it was trying to shake something off.

“Kriff, Cassian!” Kes hollered, sighting down his blaster, “Get off that thing!”

There was a sharp click, and the droid froze in place.

Cassian slid to the ground, a wiry shadow.

“Power down,” he gasped.

The droid thumped back down to the ground, eyes blinking out.

Kes closed his eyes and rested his head against the bed, loosely clutching his blaster.

“The C-3 datacard came loose,” Cassian said, as if Kes cared, “It’s still hardwired to Imperial programming.”

“Imagine that,” Kes muttered.

He swiped a trembling hand across his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Cassian said, after a long moment of hesitation.

“What the fark is so important you need to keep this thing in here?” Kes bit out, “That… that  _ thing _ just tried to kill me. In my own bed.”

He heard Cassian sigh, then stand slowly and wave the lights on. Kes squinted up at him, blinking.

“Come on,” Cassian said, pulling on his boots and wearily settling his jacket around his shoulders, “Let’s go for a walk.”

* * *

“You’re from Naboo, yes?” Cassian said as they wandered out onto roof of the temple. He waved aside the night sentry, leaving them alone under the stars and moons.

“Well, you already know the answer to that, don’t you?”

Cassian sighed again, a distant, broken sound.

“In my line of work…” he began, then trailed off.

Kes glanced over at him, a small, insignificant silhouette. 

“There’s a certain degree of distance I have to keep,” Cassian began again, “You have to understand.”

“Of course I do,” Kes snorted, “I’m from  _ Naboo _ .”

Cassian turned away, pacing to the edge of the roof.

“Look,” Kes said, “I’m not looking for a heart-to-heart or anything. I just want to know why I’m risking my life by, of all things, sleeping next to a kriffing Imperial security droid, and it can’t be just because my intelligence officer bunkmate says it’s important for the rebellion. Everything is important for the rebellion.” He bit his lip. “Trust goes both ways, Cassian.”

Cassian scrubbed a hand over his face.

“I’m leaving for Naboo tomorrow,” he said.

“You  _ what!? _ ” Kes yelped.

“The droid came from the garrison on Naboo,” Cassian continued flatly, staring out at the distant glimmer of Yavin 2.

“You’re not--”

Cassian turned and silenced him with a look.

“Even in the Alliance, there are spies, you must know this,” he said, “No one outside the council can know where I’m going.”

“Yeah, but…” Kes stammered, “But you can’t just  _ spy _ on the Imperial garrison. They’ll--they’ll kill you!”

“Imagine that,” Cassian said caustically.

“No, I’m  _ from Naboo _ ,” Kes continued, urgently, “I know what it’s like.”

Cassian looked at him, sidelong.

“You’ve never heard of Scarif, have you.”

“No, you’re not  _ listening _ . I left Naboo. I was maybe the first person to get out in almost two decades. Once you land on Naboo, they’ll shoot you before they let you leave.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve done it before.”

Kes snapped his mouth shut.

“I brought the droid back from Naboo a few months ago,” Cassian said, “It’s been sitting in the cargo hold of a decommissioned U-wing and I’d been working on it there until, somehow, a rumor started this week that we were trying to reprogram Imperial droids. Of course,” he said grimly, “That was a little too close to the truth, so I rushed it to our quarters to complete the extraction of all the data files before I was due to leave.” With sudden ferocity, he demanded, “Do you understand what I’m saying?” 

Kes swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said.

Cassian’s comlink chirped suddenly, and he sighed again so wearily that Kes took an involuntary step forward.

“I have to go,” Cassian said.

“When will you be back?”

Cassian shrugged, turning for the stairs. Kes struggled to find words.

“Wait!” he called, “How do you know I’m not a spy?”

Cassian’s words drifted back out onto the roof.

"Because you're from  _Naboo_."


	6. Scarif

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kes and Cassian have a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers for Rogue One
> 
> This chapter is meant to be read as a prologue to Chapter Seven.

“You’re not actually from Fest, are you,” Kes said, one week into Cassian’s compulsory medical leave.

Cassian, wrapped in several thick blankets despite the afternoon sun, didn’t look up from an atypically blank examination of his datapad.

“Was there a question in there?” he muttered.

“Shara says you knew each other when you were kids,” Kes continued, “But you don’t sound anything like her.”

Cassian snorted, winced. He set the datapad down in his lap. 

“And what,” he squinted at his bunkmate, “Do I sound like?”

Kes sprawled back in the grass, throwing an arm over his eyes. He considered the question thoughtfully.

“A mating Asyyyriak with a chest cold,” he concluded.

“Kriff off,” Cassian muttered, activating his datapad again.

Kes rolled over onto his stomach, reaching up and snatching it away. 

“You’re on leave, Cass,” he said, “It’s physically making me hurt watching you try to read out here.”

Cassian sighed, winced again.

“Why does it matter where I’m from?” he asked irritably, rubbing at his eyes.

“Because we’ve lived together for a while, and the only non-Alliance-related thing I know about you is that your favorite color is blue. And why is your favorite color blue? Because, you said, you grew up by the sea. Fest isn’t exactly known for its seas, unless you count the frozen ones, so either you or your cousin are lying. Just so you know, my money’s on you.”

Cassian looked down at him.

“You’ve really put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?” he said drily.

“Anything to get through the day,” Kes replied.

Cassian shifted gingerly in his chair, holding his breath.

“You would be a terrible intelligence officer,” he partly spoke, partly grunted, “Probably’d be assassinated by an Ewok.”

Kes shrugged, stretched out on the grass.

“That’s why we have you,” he said.

The jungle was still. 

There were no sounds, hardly any air traffic. Occasionally, the sentry droid would pop its head out to make sure they hadn’t gone for a joyride over the edge, but, as always, they were very much alone. Kes sensed Cassian relaxing incrementally beside him, closing his eyes, turning towards the sun.

“I arrived on Fest when I was six years old,” he said after a period of minutes or hours, “I’ve spent most of my life there, so it might as well have been my homeworld.”

“You know I’m going to ask where you were before that, right?”

“Yeah.”

An A-wing circled down to land miles beneath them.

“Where were you before that?”

Cassian huffed a pained laugh.

“What has Shara told you?”

“Nothing. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Kes looked over at him. “Does  _ she  _ know?”

Cassian’s gaze was distant again.

“I think so,” he said quietly. 

He fidgeted with the edge of a blanket, swallowed. “I was born on Scarif.”

“Scarif?” Kes repeated blankly.

“Exactly,” Cassian said.

“I feel like I’ve heard of it somewhere before.”

Cassian said nothing, just sat, gaze clouded.

“It’s in the Outer Rim, isn’t it?”

“Good guess.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Cassian licked his lips. “It was beautiful.”

Kes sat up slowly, looking over at him. He asked the question.

“Why’d you leave?”

Cassian avoided his gaze.

“I had to.”

“Cassian--”

“--Scarif,” Cassian almost breathed the word, “Has been a major covert military installation of the Empire for many years now.”

Kes was quiet. He thought of Naboo.

“How’d you get out?”

“A rebel ship was scouting the area,” Cassian replied, “But it was a little late.” 

He answered the next question well before it came. 

“I was alone.”

Kes fidgeted with Cassian’s datapad.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Cassian didn’t respond. His eyes were closed, face pale.

Kes surreptitiously pressed a button on his communicator. He laid back in the grass.

Clunking footsteps heralded Kaytoo’s appearance a few minutes later. Kes sat up.

“I think he’s asleep,” he whispered.

“He is not,” Cassian muttered, opening his eyes, “He is just tired of your questions.”

“Funny,” Kes said.

“If I had a mouth, I would not be smiling,” Kaytoo said.

Cassian frowned.

“Let’s go,” Kes said.

Kaytoo reached down and single-handedly picked up both wheelchair and intelligence officer.

“I don’t appreciate being summoned solely to perform physical labor,” Kaytoo complained, carefully following Kes down the stairs, “I sense that I’ve been excluded from an important conversation.”

“Just Scarif, Kay,” Cassian mumbled, voice echoing as they emerged into the Grand Audience Chamber.

“‘Just Scarif’?” Kes half-yelped, turning, “Did he know too?”

Kaytoo set Cassian down gently and took the push handles.

“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” he said, “It’s obvious Cassian likes me more than he likes you.”

“Leave me out of this,” Cassian said, wearily avoiding eye contact.

  
But later, in the near-darkness of the turbolift, his hand reached out and gripped Kes’s arm, briefly.


	7. Implosion, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how it begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a plot.
> 
> No spoilers.

 

It started with a snide comment from a captured Imperial officer, made after a rare joint extraction in which nearly everything had gone wrong, leaving them to be rescued by, of all people, Senator Bail Organa.

Looking back, Kes determined--that moment, those words--that was when the implosion began.   
  


“The Empire is rooted in sacrifice, a desire for the greater good, not some petty desire for individual freedoms,” the Imperial officer snarled, midway through an improvised interrogation session in the hold-cum-medbay of Bail Organa’s unmarked cruiser.

_ Oh, fark, _ Kes thought, watching the exchange from flat on his back.

“And what,” Cassian bit out, “would  _ you  _ know about sacrifice?” 

“I was in the vanguard on Scarif,” the Imperial officer snapped, “I watched my men  _ die  _ liberating those islands.”

Cassian stiffened.

“Leave it, Cass,” Kess warned, sitting up awkwardly and grabbing a cautious hold of Cassian’s arm.

Cassian shoved him aside, nearly sending him tumbling from the makeshift medi-bed  and sending arcs of pain shooting through his possibly broken ankle. A large hand reached out to steady him. Kes shot a look at Bail Organa, who ignored him, a strange glint in his eyes.

“Tell me,” Cassian said, slowly, deliberately, stepping forward towards the handcuffed man seated across from them, “What was that like, watching your men die?”

“Cass,” Kes tried again.

“Stay out of this,” Cassian snapped.

“I’d known them for years,” the Imperial officer shot back, “Trained them,  _ raised  _ them. I’d made them the men they were. They didn’t deserve to die in the sand, torched by some natives who probably couldn’t even tell Aurebesh from Massassi cave drawings.”

Cassian drew in a deep breath, hands clasped so tightly behind his back that they shook. Kes tensed.

“Now,” Cassian said calmly, dangerously, “I could be wrong, but I thought Scarif was in the Outer Rim. Why would they need Aurebesh all the way out there? Maybe they were a simple people. Maybe they only knew Outer Rim Basic and had no need for Aurebesh, though that’s a conclusion which, I’m sure you’ll admit, can be difficult to draw when you’re engaged in the difficult task of destroying clay houses with assault tanks and walkers,” he paused, pointedly, then continued, “Even more difficult, however, is assigning the worth of a people according standardized criteria, but--” he smiled, curling a lip, “--it looks like you managed alright.”

The Imperial officer blinked up at him, nonplussed.

“Either way,” Cassian shrugged, a rippling coil of tension, “You’re wrong. The people of Scarif were taught both Aurebesh and Outer Rim Basic in their village schools and were probably more literate than the majority of the men you spent half a standard year teaching how to shoot a stationary object.”

“And what would you know about that?” the Imperial officer spat, seizing on the subject, “You rebels always think you know everything--everything that’s ever happened, everything that ever will. We took Scarif almost twenty years ago and destroyed their pathetic records. There is nothing  _ left _ of those people.” He looked Cassian up and down disdainfully, “You couldn’t have been more than--”

“--I WAS SIX YEARS OLD!” Cassian roared, seizing the officer bodily by the lapels and slamming him back against the wall.

“Cassian!” Kes shouted, lunging forward. Senator Organa’s hand on his chest forced him back down.

“Let go of me!” Kes snapped, eyes blazing.

“Let him go,” the senator replied calmly.

“I was six years old when you killed my mother, when you killed my father, when you destroyed my  _ planet _ ,” Cassian spat in the officer’s face, “But that’s not sacrifice. No, it’s not sacrifice when you pick through the rubble looking for your friends, your family, for those who’d  _ raised _ you and made you who you were.  _ That’s not sacrifice! _ ” he shouted, slamming the officer back against the wall again. “Sacrifice isn’t having things taken from you. Sacrifice isn’t losing people, places, things you love. Sacrifice is about losing all of that and  _ not wanting them back _ , it’s about  _ giving them up _ , even-- _ especially _ if it means that someone else will get to have them. I’d had a  _ family _ ,” his voice broke, “I’d had a people, and you took that away from me. My father raised me a man, but he wasn’t really even my father. I wasn’t his son. My blood-father died on Carida, sacrificing himself for me, hoping that I might be able to live the life of freedom that he’d wanted so badly for himself. And do you know what my father, my step-father, did before he married my mother? He’d been a junior representative from Alderaan to the Galactic Senate. Do you know what he did after he married my mother? He became a fisherman. A  _ fisherman _ . He moved to Scarif, where no one knew what the holonet was, and became a  _ fisherman _ because he loved my mother and my mother loved me.”

The Imperial officer, pale and trembling, said nothing.

“ _ You took this away from me! _ And for what!?” Cassian shouted, shaking him, “And for  _ what _ ?” he demanded fiercely, “What did they ever do against your mighty sacrificial empire except--except exist where you said they couldn’t?” he bowed his head, breathing heavily, “I could kill you right now,” he said lowly, “I could beat the life out of you with my bare hands--you know I’ve done it before. Isn’t it obvious when a man has killed someone with his bare hands? I’ve killed in cold blood. I’ve killed women, children, old men sitting before their fires. I’ve killed so that no one else would have to live each death the way that I have. That is my sacrifice, for the rebellion, for the Republic.”

“But for my people,” he snarled, “For my  _ family _ , I can’t ever give enough.” 

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, there was in them a brittleness that Kes had never seen.

“You don’t deserve to speak about sacrifice,” Cassian said quietly, releasing his grip on the man’s lapels.

The officer dropped limply back into his seat, eyes wide, bright.   
  


In the silence--

  
“You bastard,” Kes said, turning to Senator Organa, “You  _ knew _ .”


	8. Implosion, Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A middling return--fragments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not all doom and gloom.
> 
> No spoilers.

Kes was somewhere beside him. That was his constant.

Everything else--the voices, the pain, the whine of an overtaxed hyperdrive--faded in and out, flickering like the confiscated holo of Orson Krennic. Inconstant. Misleading. Treacherous.

“We’re two hours out from Yavin,” Melshi said, a question in his voice.

“I know,” Kes said.

Cassian knew that they were talking about him, somehow, without words. He clung to Kes’s hand as even those words slipped away, out, through him, fading with Melshi’s bootsteps to the other end of the hold and out and out and out, lost in the vacuum of space.

“Please,” he gasped.

“I’m sorry,” Kes whispered, wrapping both hands around his.

* * *

He opened his eyes when they arrived on Yavin 4, and the sunlight struck him so boldly tears escaped. He forced himself to keep them open, to drown in the imitation blue sky of a place that was not quite home.

* * *

He fought them when they tried to put him in the bacta tank. He’d never feared water before. Never feared being underwater. Before. But a blind panic gripped him the moment his head went under and the surface closed above him and his ears filled and the world became the reflection of a false sea. He clawed off the respirator with the hand that wasn’t broken in three places, inhaled, or tried to, and drowned again, tossed in the storm churned up in the wake of the departing Imperial fleet.

Hard, cold hands pulled him out, gently cradling him in long, heavy arms that had surely been created for something else.

A sudden, sharp prick in his arm screamed of betrayal, and he fought, stubbornly, to escape this stillness, this heaviness creeping over him.

He lost.

* * *

“Hey.”

“How’s he doing today?”

“Same old, you know. Sleeping in. Avoiding responsibility.”

“And how are you?”

“Same old, you know. Sleeping in. Avoiding responsibility.”

“You know the charges won’t stick. Stop moping around.”

“At least moping gives me something to do.”

“You should go keep Kaytoo company. He’s refusing to speak to anyone until he’s allowed back in here.”

“Did they really ban him from the medbay for the bacta thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Sith. They all know that he’s the only one Kay cares about. Why’re they being such--.”

“--Except you, you mean.”

“What?”

“Kay cares about you too.”

“Okay, well _that_ makes me feel a lot better.”

“ _Kes_.”

“Sorry.”

* * *

The litany of injuries was horrifying.

Cassian listened, expressionless, large eyes sunken hollows, smooth cheeks pale and paper-thin.

Kes watched him, hand still aching from the skeletal impression of a man clinging to life.

“Captain Andor?” the doctor repeated.

Cassian blinked slowly and nodded.

The doctor disappeared.

Kes placed a cautious hand on his arm, afraid to touch, afraid to break, afraid to shatter into a million pieces.

“What can I do?” he asked.

Cassian sank deeper. He shook his head, faintly, closed his eyes.

Kes sat.

* * *

“I hear they’re letting you out of here in a few days,” Shara said with a grin.

“Yeah,” Cassian replied with just the faintest ghost of a smile.

“Kaytoo’s been moving all of Kes’s stuff so you can have the bottom bunk.”

“Yeah?” he shifted, hand splayed against his chest as if he could hold mending bone together.

“Kes and I had something we wanted to talk to you about, actually,” Shara said.

The privacy curtain twitched open.

“We did?” Kes, sweat-soaked and clearly just in from patrol, said as he dropped his rucksack to the floor with a clank.

Cassian raised an eyebrow.

Shara turned towards him, chin jutting out, head cocked.

“Yes,” she said forcefully, “We did.”

“Oh Sith,” Kes muttered, seating himself at the foot of Cassian’s bed, wiping his forehead, “Really?”

Shara’s glare would have incinerated Hoth several times over.

“Do we have to?” Kes whispered, as if Cassian had punctured his eardrums and not both lungs, “ _Now?_ ”

“I don’t believe you,” Shara snapped, “Grow a pair and just _tell_ him.”

Kes, ears burning, darted a look at Cassian and mumbled something under his breath. Shara’s glare, if possible, intensified.

Cassian looked between the two in obvious confusion.

“I didn’t--” he began.

“--WE GOT MARRIED,” Kes blurted, then froze. “We got married,” he repeated, in almost a whisper, “But it’s still kind of a secret.”

Cassian stared at him, eyes round. He didn’t speak.

“Cass?” Kes said, nervously, “This is where you’re supposed to congratulate us.”

Cassian blinked again, hard, and Kes realized there were tears in his eyes.

“Cassian,” Shara said gently, pushing Kes aside and sitting beside her cousin.

“I’m…” Cassian stammered, “I’m very happy. For you.”

Kes bowed his head. Shara wrapped her arms around Cassian, and he leaned, ever so slightly, into her embrace.

“I’m happy,” he repeated, a tear escaping down his cheek, “I’m so happy.”

* * *

“You know how Shara and I said we haven’t had the wedding yet?” Kes asked gingerly later that week, staring up at the ceiling in the dark.

No response from the bed below him, though the white-blue glow of Cassian’s datapad remained, unwavering.

“We wanted to wait,” Kes continued.

Still no response.

“Cass?” he asked, “Are you listening to me?”

“Hmm?”

Kes glared at the picture of his mother he’d taped to the ceiling, as if she was responsible for his bunkmate’s seemingly innate disregard for matters not directly related to The Cause.

“I’m going to strip naked and do the can-cantina through the hangar at midday tomorrow,” Kes said.

“Mmm,” came Cassian’s erudite response.

“Seriously?”

“Hmm?”

“Kriff’s sake,” Kes muttered. He lifted a leg and nearly kicked the ceiling before realizing that their positions had been reversed. He settled for reaching out and vigorously shaking the bed instead.

A muffled thump and curse told him Cassian had dropped his datapad on his face.

“Fark, Kes,” came Cassian’s voice, thoroughly irritated, “What?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you something important for the past half hour, Cass. And for kriff’s sake, turn your datapad off. Reading in the dark is bad for your eyes.”

A long-suffering sigh, but the blue-white glow below him winked off, plunging the room into true night.

“Well?” Cassian demanded, “What were you trying to tell me?”

Kes hesitated, staring up at the invisible picture of his mother.

“ _Kes_ ,” Cassian drew his name out impatiently.

“Shara and I haven’t had the wedding yet,” Kes hedged.

“You’ve only mentioned that every day since I’ve been back. Having second thoughts?”

Kes kicked the ceiling on reflex and swore. Cassian coughed a laugh below him.

“No, you gundark,” Kes hissed when the throbbing in his foot had subsided, “We haven’t had the wedding because we wanted you to be there,” he paused, “And we wanted an okay from someone on the council too, just in case Melshi’s head explodes over the amount of protocol we’ve--I’ve--trashed in the past week and decides to banish me to the unit on Hoth or something. But mostly we wanted you to be there.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Don’t start, Cass,” Kes groaned, “It’s just a wedding. At most, it’ll last half a day, and then you can go back to intimidating all the comms officers in our new, creepy underground command center. It’s not like I’m asking you to strip naked and do the can-cantina through the hangar at midday tomorrow.”

“...What--”

“--I also want you to be my best man,” Kes blurted, again.

Silence.

“Cass?” Kes asked nervously.

“Yeah.”

“Did you hear--”

“--Yeah.”

Kes shifted uneasily.

“Well?”

“What about Tuck?”

“What about him?”

“You two are pretty close, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

Kes sighed loudly.

“No man who has ever flirted with my now-wife will ever be my best man. And he’s not my best friend, Cass. ”

“But--”

“--Okay, I’m going to save us both a lot of pain and just take that as a yes,” Kes said flatly, “As soon as you’re back on your feet, you’re going to stand next to me as your cousin and I cry and suck each other’s faces in front of the entire base.”

“Well, that’s just _gross_ \--”

“--and then you’re going to give a speech.”

“ _Fark,_ Kes. I think I _would_ rather run naked through the hangar than do all--” Kes heard the sheets rustle as Cassian gestured violently, “--all _that_.”

“Well, now that you mention it--” Kes began slyly.

“--That was a joke,” Cassian said quickly, “I’ll give your stupid speech.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Kes said, after a pause.

“Kriff off,” Cassian muttered, clicking his datapad back on.

In the white-blue glow, Kes smiled at his mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters are pretty bleak. This one ended on a reasonably upbeat note, so unless you all are dying to read about (purely fictional) pain and sadness, I'll probably hold off on posting doom and gloom for the next few days to avoid completely ruining someone's holiday.
> 
> Cheers, all.


	9. Implosion, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how things went wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An overabundance of plot.
> 
> No spoilers.

 

A search of the officer’s possessions had turned up a holocron of a tall man in a large white cape, obviously a superior, giving high-level-clearance orders for a shipment of weapons-grade durasteel to be redirected from Naboo to Scarif. The man had a name.

Orson Krennic.

Cassian scrubbed a hand across his jaw, exchanging a long look with Senator Mon Mothma after the hologram had flickered out of existence.

“Captain Andor--” she began.

“--I’m not going to Scarif,” he interrupted flatly, “Send Kolya. I’m going to Naboo.”

“Given your history, Captain Andor” General Draven said, “It would make the most sense, by all considerations, for you to lead the expedition to Scarif. There is no one else in the Alliance, or, in all likelihood, the rest of the galaxy, who have a working knowledge of your homeworld.”

Cassian flinched, hardly perceptibly. 

“I left Scarif as a child over seventeen years ago, sir,” he countered, stepping out of the shadows by the holomap, “What memories I have are hardly actionable.”

“Nevertheless,” Draven pressed, “Any intelligence on Scarif would be invaluable at this point.”

“I’ll brief Kolya,” Cassian replied, “She’ll know everything I know. Besides, no one has been to Naboo as frequently as I have,” he continued, “I have several contacts planetside who might be willing to cooperate.”

“We have several agents on Naboo already,” Draven said sharply, “You know this, Captain, or have personal factors clouded your judgement?”

Cassian’s eyes flashed, and he stood stiffly, jaw clenched.

“Personal factors,” he ground out, “Are always in play, sir. We are a  _ rebellion _ .”

Senator Mothma might have sighed, but Bail Organa spoke over her.

“I agree with Captain Andor,” he said, voice belying the weariness etched into the lines on his face. General Draven turned to face him, twisting his scowl into something slightly more neutral. “We would do well to send fresh eyes to Scarif,” Senator Organa continued lightly, “and Captain Andor has often proved his worth on Naboo in the past.”

Cassian didn’t look at the senator. He knew that if he did, that something, something old and painfully familiar would twist in his stomach again. 

In the silence, everyone turned to Mon Mothma. 

She gave Cassian a measuring look.

After an interminable period of time, she spoke:

“So be it.”

* * *

“Naboo?  _ Again _ ?” Kes exclaimed that night in their quarters, “I don’t know if you remember, but the last time you were on Naboo, you almost  _ died _ .”

“I’ll have Kay with me,” Cassian replied absently, hunched over his datapad at the desk. 

“From what he tells me, you always make him stay with the ship,” Kes pointed out, tugging on his boots, “I don’t see how that could possibly help.”

Cassian grunted, scratching at his chin. He popped a datachip out of his pad and stood, striding for the door. It wheezed open before he reached it.

“In a rush?” Shara asked, eyebrows raised, taking in his tousled hair and rather wild eyes at a glance.

“Yeah,” he said, brushing past her into the hall.

Shara turned to watch him disappear into the nearest turbolift and pressed her lips together.

“What’s up with him?” she asked Kes as the door wheezed shut again behind her.

“Same old,” Kes replied, “He’s headed off to Naboo again tomorrow.” He reached up and pulled Shara down beside him. “I’m fine too, thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t,” Shara huffed into his ear, then paused, drawing back. “Naboo?” she asked, “ _ Again _ ?”

“Exactly. I think it has something to do with that Imp we brought back a few weeks ago. Rumor’s that he had some sort of holocron on him.”

Shara stilled.

“Kolya said the same thing.”

They exchanged a look.

“She won’t tell me where she’s going, though,” Shara added, “As in,  _ really _ wouldn’t tell me this time.”

“Fark,” Kes muttered under his breath, “I don’t know which is worse.”

* * *

Cassian had one foot in the cockpit of his ship when he heard his name called from across the hangar. He turned, saw who it was, and hesitated.

“Senator Organa,” he said with a terse nod.

“Captain Andor,” the senator said, approaching with swift, sure strides, “I just wanted to wish you well before you left.”

“Thank you,” Cassian replied automatically, shifting his rucksack higher on his shoulder.

“When you return,” the senator began with just the barest trace of uncertainty, “There’s something I’d like to speak with you about.”

“Of course,” Cassian said, shifting uneasily. Kaytoo, already strapped into the co-pilot’s seat, reached out and plucked the bag from his shoulder, tossing it into the rear hold.

“Cassian, wait!” someone else shouted from across the hangar, breaking the unreasonably tense silence.

“I should let you be on your way,” Senator Organa said quickly, “May the Force be with you, Captain.”

“And with you,” he replied, the words like lead in his mouth.

The Senator turned and strode away, nodding at Shara as she sprinted past.

Cassian frowned.

“What is it, Shara?” he asked, double-checking the coordinates Kaytoo had entered into the system.

“Kes and I--” she began, breathing heavily.

Cassian eyed her warily.

“We are cleared for takeoff,” Kaytoo said from behind him.

“No, wait,” Cassian replied over his shoulder. He turned back to Shara. “What is it?”

Shara bit her lip, clearly struggling to find words.

“Never mind,” she said, “I’ll tell you when you get back.”

“ _ Shara _ .”

“No,” she shook her head, “Don’t worry, it’s good news,” she said quickly at the look on his face, “I just want to give you a reason to come back safe.”

Cassian smiled faintly.

“No promises,” he said quietly in Scryllic.

Shara reached up. He reached down. Their fingertips brushed, only barely, and then Kaytoo powered on the engines, and Shara stepped back, watching them taxi out of the hangar into the searing mid-morning sun, wreathed in golden shadow. She sensed Kes approach behind her.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Kes,” she whispered.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her close.

* * *

They disappeared just outside Keren. 

There was silence in the command room when repeated hails by the comms officers received only static for their efforts.

Beside Mon Mothma, Bail Organa sat, pale and still.

* * *

Kes answered the summons to Senator Organa’s quarters with trepidation.

He wasn’t sure what protocol deemed proper punishment for cursing a sitting member of the council to his face, but he felt sure he was about to find out. But when the door opened at his presence and he saw the look on the senator’s face, trepidation was replaced by outright fear, and on its heels quickly came grief. After that came anger.

“Senator Organa,” he choked, standing at attention.

“Have a seat, Sergeant Dameron,” the senator said, voice dry and coarse as sandpaper.

Kes sat.

They met each other’s eyes over the senator’s desk. Kes held his chin high, swallowed.

“We lost contact with Captain Andor’s ship five clicks north of Keren this afternoon,” Senator Organa said, “All further attempts at communication were unsuccessful.”

Kes blinked. Hard. 

“The Alliance has operatives in the area, but--”

“--he’s not dead,” Kes interrupted flatly.

The understanding in the senator’s eyes was almost too much to bear.

“I wanted to tell you personally that--”

“--What more did you want from him?” Kes demanded, “He’s given his life, his  _ soul _ to the rebellion. Couldn’t you see that?”

He didn’t need to explain what he was referring to. A brief flash in his mind--the brittleness in Cassian’s eyes, the white knuckles bunched in the Imperial officer’s uniform.

Bail Organa looked--no, not unsettled. Guilty? Possibly.

“Captain Andor and I have--” he hesitated, continued, carefully, “--have a certain shared history.”

“You knew,” Kes bit out, “You knew he was from Scarif. Do you--” he paused to suck in a sharp breath, “Did you know what that  _ did  _ to him? Losing his family?  _ Surviving _ ? I think it might have been better if the Empire had destroyed the planet entirely, not taken it over,  _ perverted  _ it into some sort of nightmare.” He paused. “But maybe you do know this,” Kes said suddenly, shrewdly, “Because it’s the only thing that keeps him going. Did you know that he still speaks Scryllic in his sleep? He still thinks in Scryllic, even though he left Scarif when he was six. You know how he clings to it. You  _ knew  _ and you wanted to--”

“ _ \--Enough _ ,” Bail Organa said, dark eyes flashing in a rare show of temper.

“No, it’s not  _ enough _ ,” Kes snapped, half-rising from his seat, “You and the council put him through the hells in the name of the rebellion, and he’s willingly done everything because he  _ is _ the rebellion-- _ he lives and breathes the rebellion _ \--but he’s just one man. One broken man, and you’ve taken that brokenness and twisted it into something you just use. You’ve driven him to this, this  _ insanity  _ because you know he won’t be able to face himself if he doesn’t do everything he can to strike out against the people who killed his family.” 

Kes stood. His chair crashed to the ground behind him.

“This is not the rebellion I joined,” he spat.

He stormed from the room.

Bail Organa sat at his desk and hoped he was wrong.

* * *

Kes slammed the controls to his quarters with a trembling hand, stopping short when he found someone sitting on his bed.

“Shara,” he said.

She raised a tear-streaked face to meet his.

“You heard,” he said bleakly.

“Kolya’s dead,” she said.

Kes stiffened, something in his chest tightening, bursting. Numbly, he sat next to her and reached out his arms.

“They sent a holo,” Shara choked, “They caught her, and they killed her, and they sent a holo.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, hands shaking badly, smoothing her hair, her cheeks, her tears away, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

He realized he was crying when Shara reached up and touched his cheek, terribly familiar fear written across her face.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, clinging to her, “I’m so sorry.”


	10. Implosion, Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers.

There was pain. That was his constant.

When they broke the bones in his hand, he thought about his father, an increasingly distant shadow of a man who'd smelled of the sea. His father, who’d taught him the importance of listening, the importance of silence.

When they broke his ribs, he thought about Kes, the man with the heart too big for his chest. Kes, who’d shaken him awake countless nights, who’d watched him out of the corner of his eye as if he was afraid he might break.

When they drowned him underwater, he thought about Scarif and its blue seas and unsullied beaches. Scarif, where the sky met the sea and never quarreled.

When they burned him, he thought of his mother. His mother, who’d loved him.

When they strung him up to die, he thought of the rebellion.

Where was the rebellion now?

* * *

 “I’m going to Naboo,” Kes announced over lunch.

Twelve heads of varying shape and color swivelled with the same degree of incredulity in his direction.

“I’m going to find Cassian,” he said.

The rest of Extraction Team Bravo looked at him as if he’d sprouted another head.

“Kes,” Melshi said slowly, “Kes, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“He’s not dead,” Kes protested, “Where’s the holo? He’s made more enemies than Kolya in the Empire. If they’d killed him, we’d know.”

“Kes, he never even made it onto the planet,” Tuck said quietly, “They shot him down, probably thought he was just a smuggler or something.”

“We don’t know that,” Kes countered fiercely, “All we know is that there was a crash near Keren. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah?” Melshi pressed, voice rising. Heads began to turn around the mess. “And even if he survived the crash, what makes you think he’s still alive? It’s been over two weeks. There’s been no indication from the council that anyone survived, or even that the Imperial forces are aware of the crash. There’s been no contact from either him or Kaytoo. None.”

“That’s what they’ve been telling us,” Kes allowed, “But there’s more. I’m sure there’s more they keeping from us.”

Several of his men exchanged glances.

“Yeah? And what makes you think that?”

“Kolya was sent out the same day as Cass, but to the Outer Rim. We got that--that holo of her the same day we lost contact with Cass and Kaytoo,” Kes paused significantly, “They were working the same intel.”

“That just seems to reinforce the general consensus that there's no way Cassian could have made it.”

“The Empire has him. I’m sure of it,” Kes insisted, “After Ord Mantell, they’ve had a bounty out for half a million credits. They know he’s a high-ranking intelligence officer.”

“Even if Cassian is still alive,” Melshi said, “what makes you think you’ll be able to get to Naboo and back in one piece when one of our most experienced, most _respected_ agents couldn’t?”

Kes clenched his fists

“I’m from Naboo,” he hissed, “I got out once. I can do it again. If everyone else here wants to sit and lap up whatever story the council is force-feeding you and let a good man die, go ahead. But me?” he laughed bitterly, “I’m through.”

“Dameron,” Melshi snapped, “This is treading dangerously close to treason.”

“This is a _rebellion_ ,” Kes snarled, “We’re _all_ traitors.”

He looked up and down the table, meeting each member of his unit in the eye.

“Are you really just going to let this go?” he said lowly, “After everything he’s done for the rebellion? For _you_ ? How many times has he stuck his own neck out for us, making sure we knew what we needed to know before we headed out in the field? How many times have we done the same for him? We’re the closest thing he has to family. If there’s even the smallest chance, the longest odds that he might still be alive, we _owe it to him_ to try.”

Something seemed to break. Melshi put his elbows on the table, resting his face in his hands.

“We’re not an intelligence unit,” Sakas said, breaking the silence, “We’d be going in blind.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Kes replied, “You have me.”

* * *

Someone was talking to someone.

He was sure of it.

Low voices, something soft, familiar, followed by a muddled Mid Rim accent.

“--remains uncooperative.”

“What do you mean? How can a droid be uncooperative?”

“It’s been completely reprogrammed,” came the softer voice, an Outer Rim accent, yes, “Hard-reprogrammed. Any further efforts would require a complete physical re-wiring, which would destroy its memory banks.”

A sound of disgust.

“Destroy it.”

“I’ll see to it.”

Retreating bootsteps.

Cassian breathed out through his mouth, ragged.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Captain,” the Mid Rim voice said.

Approaching bootsteps.

“You’re a man of many talents.”

Cassian didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Every breath, every thought--fragmented, shattered.

“It’s no wonder you fell in with the rebels. No, I can’t imagine that you’d ever be one to follow orders that disagreed with you.”

He thought of Kes, the good man, the soldier.

He thought of Kaytoo, the falsely artificial, the unequivocally real.

Both of them loyal to a fault.

 _Don’t come for me_ , he thought, _I’m already dead._

“The thing about rebels, though,” the Mid Rim voice continued, “is the _desperation_.”

 _I’ve already lost_.

“You’re so desperate to believe in everything. So hopeful that the next thing, the next day, the next captured Imperial officer will lead the way to redemption.”

Cassian coughed, felt the the bones grind against each other, sucked in another breath.

“I might have admired you for that. Life can be hard in the Outer Rim, or so I’ve heard.” A sudden edge, hardening, sharpening the Mid Rim voice.

Cassian twitched reflexively.

The Mid Rim voice rumbled low, low laughter.

“Have I hit a nerve, Captain Andor? What’s in the Outer Rim that I should know about, hmm?”

Cassian could feel the man’s breath on his face, could taste the nauseating sterility. He tensed instinctively against his shackles, drawing back, the durasteel wall cold against the bare flesh of his back.

“What’s in the Outer Rim, Captain Andor? The Rebel base?” the Mid Rim voice whispered, placing a gloved hand against his chest and pressing and pressing farther and farther, harder, harder at bone that shouldn’t give but did.

Cassian gritted his teeth, breath coming in burning, shallow gasps,

“No,” he choked, as white threatened to overwhelm the black of his vision, “But... I’ll tell you… what is.”

The pressure eased fractionally.

“And what is that?”

Cassian hung limply from his broken hand, wheezing for air. He drew himself up, sensing and turning towards the absence of space that was the face of the Mid Rim voice.

“Scarif,” he spat.

* * *

K-2SO, under heavy escort by a half dozen KX units, recognized the screams as they marched past the storeroom. He stumbled, circuits misfiring in a disordered approximation of some recursive error (emotion, his reprogramming helpfully supplied), and fixed his eyes on the door.

One of the KX units pushed him along, and he stumbled again, struggling to calculate their odds of escape. Struggling and failing because Cassian was screaming, echoing down the corridor, through this auditory receptors, and he couldn’t--he couldn’t _concentrate_. He couldn’t--function--subroutine error--failure to--location unspecified--compute--detatch--uncouple--

“I’ll take it from here,” an Imperial officer said to his KX escort. They saluted in unison and marched off the way they had come.

Kaytoo blinked down at the Imperial officer, realizing that they were very much alone in the corridor. The ghost of Cassian’s cries echoed in his electrical mind.

“Oh dear,” the Imperial officer said flatly, watching the six KX units disappear around the corner, “We appear to be alone.”

Kaytoo considered this fact.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

The Imperial officer--a scientist, Kaytoo belatedly realized from the designation on his uniform--might have smiled at him.

“Doing what?” he asked in a soft Outer Rim accent, shaking greying hair out of his pale eyes, “All I see are some malfunctioning KX units in need of…” and here he did smile, “reprogramming.”

“You are not with the Alliance,” Kaytoo said.

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Good.”

Kaytoo cocked his head.

“Thank you,” he said, and knocked the man out cold.

* * *

Senator Organa was precisely the last person Kes wanted to see while running late for an unsanctioned, potentially traitorous extraction on his Imperial homeworld. And yet there the senator was, standing outside the door to his quarters, looking like he’d run straight from a meeting with the High Command.

“Senator,” Kes said, thinking quickly, “I’m sorry, but I’m in a bit of a--”

“--I know,” the senator, pressing a datachip and an access key into his hand and stepping aside, “Go. May the Force be with you.”

Kes looked down at the access key, then back up at the senator.

“Wh--”

“--Go,” the senator said, “I will explain to the council.”

Kes swallowed, drowning under the weight of his misestimation.

“Thank you,” he said, tucking the datachip into his pocket. With one final measured look at the senator, he turned and sprinted down to the hangar.

* * *

The first datachip contained the unreleased intelligence reports definitively linking Kolya’s death to Cassian’s disappearance.

The access key was to Senator Organa’s own private, unmarked cruiser.

Melshi and the rest of ETB stared when he waved them aboard, and Melshi shook his head once they had burst into hyperspace.

“Fark, Kes,” he muttered, “We’re deep in it now, aren’t we?”

“You have no kriffing idea,” Kes replied, scrolling through the contents of the datachip.

* * *

They broke the heavy cloud cover directly over Keren and found themselves in the middle of a firefight.

“Fark!” Tuck swore, yanking them around, “What’s going on down there?”

Kes pressed his macrobinoculars to his face.

“Those are KX units firing on Imperial troops,” he said in disbelief, passing the macrobinoculars over to Melshi with a muttered, “ _Now_ we’re deep in it.”

“Hold your fire,” Melshi ordered, “They haven’t seen us yet, and I’d really rather not get involved in a fight we can’t win.”

Tuck banked sharply back up into the clouds. Kes staggered to the comms, dialing a frequency by memory.

“Kaytoo,” he said urgently, “Kaytoo, do you copy?”

By the loading ramp, Sakas checked the charge on her blaster.

“Kaytoo,” Kes repeated, “Kaytoo, are you down there?”

A sharp burst of static.

“I copy,” came a familiar metallic voice. Kes sagged against the controls. Blandly, Kaytoo continued, “Requesting emergency evacuation.”

“Where are you?” Kes demanded.

Kaytoo transmitted exact coordinates, and Tuck turned sharply again.

“Is--” Kes faltered, “Is Cass with you?”

“Affirmative,” Kaytoo replied through another burst of blaster fire.

“Copy,” Kes said shakily, “ETA--” he glanced at Tuck, who held up a fist, and quickly corrected, “--we’re right on top of you!”

Kes peered out the viewport. They were quickly approaching what appeared to be the main Imperial citadel of Keren, a hulking, gaping mess of metal with jagged sides.

“You’re gonna have to jump for it, Kay!” he hollered.

“Loading ramp down!” Melshi shouted, “Hang on!”

With a whoosh and wail of emergency indicators, the loading ramp flapped open, and with it came howling winds and the whine of blaster fire.

“Trip!” Kes shouted, “Get on the long gun!”

They plastered themselves against the sides of the ship, laying down strafing cover fire as the unmistakable figure of the former Imperial droid rapidly covered the distance to the ship, moving smoothly despite the burden in his arms.

“Come on, Kaytoo!” Kes shouted, “Hurry up!”

The cruiser lurched a few meters into the air, Tuck struggling to keep them level.

“Hold on!” Kes screamed into the cockpit.

With a massive leap, Kaytoo hurled himself into the hold just as the ship wheeled and shuddered.

“Go! Go! Go!” Melshi shouted.

Sakas hauled the loading ramp shut, and they shot off into the sky.

“Put him down here, Kay,” Kes said, sweeping off a row of jumpseats.

Kaytoo gently, terribly gently, set his burden down and stood back, uncharacteristically silent.

Kes demanded, “Give me the--” Trip pressed the medi-kit into his hand before he could finish. “Kay?” he asked.

Kaytoo looked to Melshi, who herded the rest of the men off to the other end of the hold.

“Possible sternal fracture,” he said quietly, “His breathing has been labored.”

“Alright,” Kes gritted out, opening his knife and tearing Cassian’s shirt down the middle, trying not to hesitate at the burns, “You found him. That’s what matters.” He opened the medi-kit. “Will anything in here actually help?”

Kaytoo reached into the box and pulled out two doses of symoxin.

The ship shrugged suddenly, sending them all staggering. Cassian moaned softly.

“Sorry!” Tuck called, “We’re pulling out of the atmosphere.”

Kes ignored him, lightly patting Cassian’s face.

“Hey,” he whispered, “Hey, Cass, can you hear me?”

A small gasp tore its way from his friend’s throat, and a hand suddenly fisted itself in his shirt.

“Kes,” Cassian rasped, brown eyes wide, unfocused.

“Yeah. Yeah. You’re fine. You’re safe.”

“You’re here.”

“Of course I’m here, you gundark. I was getting lonely without you.”

Cassian’s parched lips twitched feebly.

“Where--?”

“We’re taking you back home. Back to Yavin.”

Cassian’s eyes drifted closed.

“Home,” he said, a rattling cough bursting from his chest. His face twisted, fist tightening in Kes’s shirt.

Kes reached for his canteen, found it missing from his belt, and called to the rest of the men.

“Guys, do you have water?”

The entire unit reached for their canteens, but Melshi beat them to it, tossing his over to Kaytoo, who snatched it out of the air and handed it to Kes.

“Help me sit him up a little,” he said, trying to pry Cassian’s hand from his shirt, “Cass, let go a second.”

Cassian coughed again, and Kes saw the bones move beneath the thin skin of his chest.

Kaytoo gently raised Cassian’s shoulders, stuffing Kes’s rucksack beneath his head. He plucked the canteen from Kes’s hands and carefully held it to Cassian’s lips.

“Hold on,” Kes said, shifting and grabbing Cassian’s hand as the captain fought for breath, face pale, lips tinged with blue, “Easy, Cass, easy. You have to keep breathing for me, come on.”

Cass sucked in a breath, a horrible rattling sound that grated even over the thrum of the hyperdrive.

“That’s it,” Kes murmured, wincing as Cassian transferred his grip from Kes’s shirt to his hand, “That’s it. Just another one.”

Cassian breathed something that might have been in Scryllic.

“Kay’s going to give you a little water now, okay?” Kes said, nodding at Kaytoo, “Slowly.”

Cassian swallowed, sagging back against the rucksack, jaw clenched.

Kes took this respite to dig a few bacta patches from the medi-kit, plastering them onto the worst of the burns he could see. Cassian flinched but didn’t make a sound.

Melshi appeared behind Kes.

“We’re two hours out from Yavin,” he said lowly, question in his eyes.

“I know,” Kes replied.

He sat down on the cold durasteel floor, Cassian’s hand in his.


	11. Implosion, Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General TW (it's that sort of chapter).
> 
> No spoilers.

 

After the wedding, Kes elected to remain in his shared quarters with Cassian rather than move with Shara to the family housing block. He claimed it was because Shara said he snored too loudly. Shara corroborated this with an expressive eyeroll.

Cassian, of course, knew the truth.

He was nearly recovered from the disastrous mission to Naboo, and he spent much of his convalescence examining the intelligence that had led him there. He watched the holo, staggered to the ‘fresher, vomited, and watched it again. And again.

In the middle of one such self-flagellation periods, he stumbled across Kolya’s personnel file.

He hadn’t known Kolya too well beyond the parameters of their work, which was to say, he didn’t know her at all. Clearly. She had left a family behind on Corellia to join the rebellion. Two young children with no father. And, now, no mother. He was an intelligence officer. He knew the conditions on Corellia.

He’d sent her to Scarif, to her death. He might as well have condemned them all.

He kept reading, and the same sinking feeling settled in his bones when he recognized the names of her parents. What had he done? 

What had he  _ done _ ?

He’d been been an intelligence officer for nearly six years. He recognized the burden of command. He’d held hundreds of lives in his hands, testing them, risking them on the basis of ill-defined strategic advantages. He understood the importance of accepting loss, of accepting a certain helplessness in the face of unforeseen circumstances.

He couldn’t accept this loss, not when it was the result of his own selfishness, his own cowardice.

But how could he have faced Scarif again? How could he have faced Scarif, hub of Imperial covert operations, when he had known it as Scarif, his home? Personal factors, Draven had said, don’t allow personal factors to cloud operational judgement. But he had. And a mother was dead.

Cassian deactivated his datapad and tossed it with a clatter onto the desk, hands trembling.

* * *

“What the fark happened to you?” Shara asked, freshly returned from a month-long posting to Alderaan.

“Slight misunderstanding,” Kes grunted, rubbing at the purpling bruise on his jaw.

“Right,” Shara snorted and slid into the seat across from him, “How’s Cassian doing?” 

“Alright,” Kes replied, shoveling food into his mouth at a truly prodigious rate, “He’s a lot better.”

“Are we really going to do this?” Shara asked flatly, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind an ear. She sipped her caf, both hands wrapped around its warmth. “He’s my cousin. You’re my husband and his best friend. How stupid do you think I am?”

Kes winced.

“He’s been ducking my holocalls,” Shara continued pointedly, “And you haven’t been much better.”

Kes looked up at her, noted the shadows under her eyes, the almost imperceptible tremble of her mug.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “It’s just--” he faltered, struggling to find words, “You know how he is. He hates it when people worry about him, and he hates not being able to do anything about it.”

“You say that like I don’t know him.”

“ _ Shara _ ,” Kes said sharply, suddenly, “This is different. He won’t talk to me. About anything. He’s been having nightmares. Almost every night for the past week. When I wake him up, it’s like he doesn’t know where or even  _ when _ he is.”

He turned his head to the side, cutting off his words as several pilots from Blue Squadron swaggered by. Shara set her caf down.

“He’s in with the council right now,” Kes continued after they had passed, “Trying to get sent on assignment.”

“Is he back on active duty already?” Shara asked, “I thought he had a few more weeks’ leave.”

“He does,” Kes replied, “But he’s not taking it.” He paused. “He wants to go to Scarif.”

Shara raised an eyebrow.

“He told you this?”

“No,” Kes said, “Kaytoo did.”

Shara’s second eyebrow joined the first.

“Why?”

“Why did Kaytoo tell me or why does Cass want to go back to Scarif?”

“I  _ know _ why Kaytoo told you, you emotionally constipated--” Shara cut herself off, took a breath.

It was Kes’s turn to play eyebrow acrobatics.

“Why Scarif?” Shara asked.

Kes took a moment to consider his Unidentifiable Soup of the Day.

“Kolya, I think,” he said, “I caught him going through her personnel file a few days ago.”

“No, Kes,” Shara repeated, fighting the pang she felt at such a casual dismissal of her former bunkmate's death, “Why does Cassian want to go back to  _ Scarif? _ ”

Kes couldn’t look her in the eye.

“Kes?” Shara reached out, touched the inside of his wrist.

“I think--” he said, “I think he wants to go there to die.”

* * *

Shara cornered Cassian the next day as he exited the command center and was caught off guard by how gaunt he had become in her absence, all sharp planes and angles.

“Shara,” he greeted with just the faintest trace of guilt, “Welcome back.”

“Need help with those?” she asked, indicating the rolls of flimsi he had tucked under his arm.

“No, I’m okay, thanks,” Cassian declined quickly, “Sorry, I was just on my way down to--”

“--Good, I’ll walk with you,” Shara said.

He shot her a look that clearly meant he knew exactly what she was doing. She seized his arm and steered him to his quarters.

“Kes talked to you, didn’t he?” he muttered under his breath.

“You know, I do, on occasion, speak to the man I married, yes,” Shara snapped, smacking open the door and following him in. “That’s more than I can say for a certain cousin of mine.”

Kes looked up in mild alarm as they burst in, clearly having just finished packing his bag. 

“Where the fark are you going?” Shara demanded.

“Trax Sector,” Kes replied with a brief glance at Cassian, “Mid Rim.”

Cassian flinched visibly. Everyone pretended not to notice.

“ETB or Pathfinders?” Shara asked, irritation forgotten, stomach sinking.

“Pathfinders,” Kes replied, heaving his rucksack onto his shoulder, “I tried comming you.”

“I know,” Shara said with a small quirk to her lips, “Sorry.”

Kes huffed a laugh and bent down for a quick kiss. Cassian scuttled out of the way, dropping the flimsi rolls onto the desk.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Kes,” Shara said, stepping away.

“Me?” Kes said over his shoulder, one foot in the hall, “I’ll be back before you know it, Shara Bey.”

The door wheezed shut behind him.

Cassian eyed her warily, hovering by the desk, hands in his pockets, gaze flitting from the floor to the ceiling to Kes’s spare boots, placed neatly against the wall.

Shara took a deep breath.

“Cassian--” she began.

“--we aren’t having this conversation,” Cassian interrupted stiffly, “I don’t care what Kes told you. I’m fine.”

Shara ignored him and took a seat on Kes’s bed.

“Kaytoo mentioned this morning that you were heading back to Fest,” she said.

“I am.” Cassian leaned back against the desk, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Don’t you have some leave left? I’m just going to be honest here--you look like bantha poodoo on a stick.”

“I’m  _ fine _ , Shara.”

Cassian scrubbed a hand across his face, turning away from her to unroll the large pile of flimsi.

“Last I checked, Fest was pretty close to Scarif,” Shara said.

Cassian flinched again. A piece of flimsi flapped to the ground, revealing a large topographical map of an unfamiliar water-bounded land mass.

“You haven’t gone within  _ light-years _ of the Atrivis Sector since you left Fest,” Shara continued.

Cassian bent over stiffly to retrieve the flimsi, pulling it back onto the desk and weighing down the corners with spent blaster cartridges.

“And I know for a fact that the council isn’t sending anyone to Scarif in the near future, not after what happened.”

Cassian placed both hands on the desk, back to her, head bent.

“Cassian,” Shara said quietly, and he flinched at her touch, refusing to turn, “What are you  _ doing _ ?”

“I’m meeting with Travia Chan,” Cassian said roughly, “She’s flying in from Generis to discuss our--” he licked his lips, “--our recent failure.”

“The Council’s sending  _ you _ ?” Shara exclaimed, aghast.

“I volunteered,” Cassian snapped, “And I’m not going to Fest to personally deliver news of her daughter’s death. It’s been months. She already knows. This is about the rebellion. The source of the intelligence for our,” he spat, “ _ failed _ assignment was an Imperial officer captured by forces from Generis. I’ve known Travia since the early days of the rebellion on Fest, so the council considered me the strongest candidate for this assignment.”

“You don’t think--”

“--No, I  _ don’t  _ think, Shara,” Cassian snarled, rounding on her, “It’s not my place to think,  _ clearly _ . That’s what the council is for. Personal opinions, personal factors, those--” he gestured violently, “--those just cloud judgement. I serve the rebellion, not my own personal desires.”

“Cassian, it wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Cassian spat.

“Why?” Shara pressed, words spilling from her mouth, “What am I missing here, Jer?”

Cassian froze, eyes wide, hurt.

Shara was suddenly taken back ten years to the night her mother had slammed the door in his face.

“What did you just call me?” he whispered.

“Cassian,” Shara backpedaled, “I--”

“--How do you know that name?” Cassian demanded, seizing her shoulders and pinning her arms, “Where did you hear that?”

“Cassian, let go of me,” Shara said tightly, gripping his wrists and struggling to push him away.

“ _ Who told you _ ?” he roared, livid.

“Cassian!” Shara shouted, “Stop it!” She wrangled an arm out of his grip and punched him, hard, across the face.

He staggered back into the desk, clutching his nose. Blood oozed sluggishly from between his fingers. Shara, trembling, retreated from him.

“I’m your cousin, Cassian,” Shara said hoarsely, “You forget that you share two names with my father. I might have been born on Fest, and I might not speak Scryllic, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still  _ family _ .”

Cassian wavered against the desk, sluggishly dripping shockingly red blood onto his shirt. He stared, unblinking, at her.

“Fark, Cassian,” Shara swore, still shaking--from fear or anger?-- “After all this, how can you possibly expect me to believe that you’re fine?”

“I’m sorry,” Cassian whispered, horrified, “Shara, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” Shara said, “Me too.”

She activated the door controls and left.

Cassian, blood on his hands, sank to the ground.

* * *

Fest was cold. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

Sitting in an empty stateroom in the capitol, Cassian didn’t know how he’d missed the resemblance. Travia Chan, though aged several decades in the six years since he’d last seen her, held herself with the same grace and poise that he’d admired in her daughter. That same grace and poise had led him to recommend her for the assignment that led to her death.

_ And you call yourself an intelligence officer _ , he thought bitterly.

“Travia,” he said, rising when she entered the room in her repulsor chair, “I’m so sorry.”

Travia eyed him with those same sharp eyes, dark and discerning. She took his proffered hand in hers and didn’t say a word.

Cassian swallowed.

“Please, sit,” she said after a moment, watching as he gingerly sank into a large, wingback chair, “It  _ is  _ good to see you, Cassian, no matter how I wish it were under different circumstances.”

Cassian smiled tightly, cold shivering down the nape of his neck.

“The Imperial officer,” he prompted thickly.

“The fault is ours, I’m afraid,” Travia sighed, shaking her head. Cassian blinked in surprise. “I’ve had a look at the reports from the interrogation and preliminary briefings. There was no record of him in the Imperial databases.”

“That, on its own, doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Cassian pointed out, “There is no way we’ve managed to mirror the entirety of the Imperial databases.”

“I understand,” Travia said, then, uncharacteristically, hesitated, before continuing slowly, “What concerns me is that I only discovered this fact after I ordering a complete independent review of all the intelligence we sent on to you regarding the matter.”

They shared a look.

“This was a complete and fundamental failure on the part of the ORCC,” Cassian said slowly.

Travia took a deep breath.

“That is correct.”

Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Travia--” he began, strained.

“--I understand the implications,” Travia interrupted, “And I accept full responsibility. There’s long been a movement to transition the ORCC under military control, and I can’t say, at this point, that I believe it would be better in my hands.”

Cassian looked at her, stricken.

“Don’t look at me like that, Cassian,” Travia said with a small laugh, “You forget I’m still Commander-in-Chief of Atrivis. The rebellion won’t be rid of me so easily.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated sincerely.

“There’s no need for that,” Travia said, “You and I both now understand how rebellions work.”

Cassian knew she wasn’t referring to Fest, or even to Mantooine.

“No,” he agreed, “we weren’t always too young to understand.”

Travia looked at him sharply.

“We are in the right this time, Cassian,” she said, “Don’t ever let that fall into doubt.”

Cassian jerked a nod and stood.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” he said, “I know it’s always an ordeal.”

“Some things just don’t translate well over holovid,” Travia replied shrewdly.

The words caught in his throat.

“Again, about Kolya--” he tried.

“--you did all you could,” Travia said, “You have nothing you need to explain. That is my burden.”

The words burned, as did Travia’s gentle grasp on his hand before he turned and fled.

* * *

Kes was in his quarters aboard the cruiser when Cassian returned to the ship.

“The fark,” Cassian said, stopping dead just inside the door, hand falling automatically to his blaster.

“Hello to you too,” Kes said, sprawled out on the bottom bunk, clearly just out of the ‘fresher.

“What are you doing here?” Cassian asked, shoving his twitching blaster hand into the pocket of his trousers.

“Miscommunication,” Kes replied, “Apparently, the distress signal we received on-base was some sort of equipment malfunction from a downed comm system. Granted, it  _ was  _ a planet-wide blackout, so I’m not surprised Draven sent us out.”

Cassian shrugged out of his heavy, fur-lined coat and hung it from a hook on the door. Kes continued talking.

“By the time we found out, our transport had redirected to Jabiim, so we were stranded for a few days until we caught a ship heading to Fest, where I knew you would be, thanks to Kaytoo--where is he by the way?”

“Maintenance,” Cassian replied tersely, tugging off his gloves and boots.

“Really? He says you left him behind. I’m pretty sure he used the word ‘sulking.’”

Cassian ignored him and stepped into the en-suite fresher, shutting and locking the door behind him.

* * *

Kes woke with a start, tense and blinking into the darkness of an unfamiliar room.

Around him, the bed shuddered.

Kes tossed off his sheets and sat up.

“No, please,” Cassian mumbled, turning restlessly, “Please.”

Kes stood, feeling around for the edge of the top bunk.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know, it’s my fault.”

“Cass,” Kes said, voice rough with sleep, “Cass, wake up.”

He reached up and felt around for his bunkmate, clutching a fistful of sheets here, a discarded jumper there before latching onto a shoulder.

Cassian whimpered.

Kes drew his hand back as if stung. Cassian twitched away.

“Cassian,” he repeated, louder, heart hammering.

“Please, please, please, please,” Cassian babbled.

“Cassian!” Kes shouted, climbing onto the upper bunk, “Cassian, fark, wake up!”

He found his bunkmate curled tightly in on himself, rigid, sobbing. Pinning Cassian’s shoulders back against the bed, he shook him.

“Cass, it’s just a dream, wake up!”

Cassian screamed, a high, inhuman sound of terror, of pain.

Kes reared back and slapped him across the face.

Cassian jerked awake, unseeing eyes so wide Kes could see their gleaming whites even in the near-total darkness of the cabin.

“Do it, please, just do it!” Cassian begged, seizing Kes’s arms with desperate strength.

Kes slapped him again.

“Shut up!” he shouted, “Shut up, you--”

Cassian kneed him in the stomach with a flailing leg, stealing his breath.

“Cass,” Kes wheezed, back off,  “It’s me. It’s just me. It’s Kes.”

He heard Cassian scramble away from him, pressing himself up against the wall.

Belatedly, Kes realized that turning the lights on probably should have been his first move. He climbed slowly down from the bed and pressed the light switch.

He almost wished he hadn’t.

“Cass,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level, “It’s okay. You’re on a ship. We’re headed back to Yavin. You’re safe.”

Cassian blinked slowly, owlishly, hair plastered to his forehead, knees clutched to his chest, drenched in sweat, tear-streaked, shivering.

“Kes,” he rasped.

“Yeah,” Kes said, holding out both hands in a universal gesture of  _ peace, no harm _ .

“You’re here?”

“Yeah.”

Cassian blinked, flushing when full awareness returned.

“Hey,” Kes said gently, as if to a small, frightened child, “Hey, it’s okay. It’s fine.”

Cassian scraped a hand across his eyes, struggling to control his breathing.

“Cass?” Kes climbed up slowly, pushing sweat-soaked sheets aside, “You with me?”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Cassian snapped suddenly, flinching out of Kes’s grip and sliding out of bed. He pulled on his coat.

“Where… Where are you going?” Kes asked, bewildered.

“I need some air.”

Cassian was out the door before Kes could respond.

There was a brief scuffle in the hall, a sharp curse.

Ruescott Melshi burst into the room a moment later, blaster in hand, though not at the ready.

“What the fark!” he snapped.

“...Melshi?” Kes asked. 

“I heard screaming,” Melshi explained, tugging on his pajama bottoms, “And then Cassian--” he turned, looked out the door again, “--Cassian came down the hall at me looking like he’d just murdered someone.”

A sharp pang of fear lanced through Kes’s chest.

“Which way was he headed?” he demanded, pulling on his boots.

“He--why--” Melshi bit off his words at the look on Kes’s face. “It looked like he was headed down to the hangar,” he said.

“Thanks,” Kes said, pushing past him and sprinting down the hall.

* * *

Cassian wasn’t in the hangar.

Kes shouted his name, jogging between the rows and rows of fighters and light transports. The sensation of fear grew, and with it came desperation.

His comlink chirped, loud and echoing in the silence.

“Kes?” crackled Melshi’s voice.

“Melshi,” he said, heart in his throat.

“I found him. You need to get up to the aft airlock.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more part to go (and then potentially an epilogue).


	12. Implosion, Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how it ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General TW, continued. 
> 
> No spoilers.

 

 

He was cold. 

Space was cold, they’d said.

He’d never been in space before. Never watched his world hurtle away, never watched the void grow to meet him. It had made him sick, his nose pressed to the viewport, watching the Imperial ships darken the sands, erecting durasteel monuments to the death they had brought.

From space, he could see the fires.

They’d had to burn the bodies, he knew, because the sands shifted with the wind and the tide.

There were many fires.

In space, he could almost feel their heat.

But that, like everything else, had been an illusion.

Illusions of what? Of happiness, of certainty. Of purpose. Of an unshakable faith in his capacity as a good man.

He shivered and stared out the viewport, at the welcoming void. The smell of death grew.

There was a pounding at the access hatch. He vaguely remembered activating the safety overrides. 

Pounding, voices. Pounding, voices.

Why wouldn’t they  _ stop? _

All he wanted was peace. Silence without oppression. Rest without guilt. Peace.

With the rebellion, peace had never been an option. Rebellions never ended in peace.

Only death.

He fumbled for the exterior door controls, fingers thick and numb.

The pounding grew louder, more insistent.

He only had vague memories of his mother left. Her voice was fading, her scent charred. 

So, too, was his rage at her death. Grown old and stale, it had, worn from too much use. That rage--his purpose--kept carefully tended, banked and coaxed in turn, had finally spluttered, deep in the darkness of the catacombs beneath Keren. A roaring furnace, it had once sustained him, provided warmth and comfort, absolution. But now it, too, had died, gasping its last breath against the unjustifiable justice of his rebellion. His rebellion of the self.

For that, he was worth nothing.

He was a murderer of innocents.

The trust that had been placed in him--that life trust--he’d taken it, cast it into the dying embers of his rage in the hopes of sustaining a purpose, a reason to continue. To fight.

Now, he should die.

He lifted himself off the floor where he’d fallen in some dazed fog of self-pity, seized the bars beside the door to this prison, and looked out the viewport. Hyperspace blurred around him, streaks and streaks of lights, bleeding, melting into uniformity.

How good it would be to become one with them, in infinite time and space.

There was nothing left for him here.

Pounding, voices.

His trembling hand hovered over the de-pressurization controls.

And yet--fear.

Cowardly fear.

Tears of self-loathing prickled at his eyes, and he dashed them away furiously. Too frightened, too uncertain to seek the end. A death as meaningless as the life it followed.

A horrendous crash, the smell of fire.

“No,” he croaked, turning.

“Cass, please,” Kes said, blaster raised, smoke spitting and hissing from the charred remains of the access hatch.

He was crying.

Cassian had never seen him cry before.

“Let me go,” he whispered. 

He shivered, ghostly fingers reaching through time and space, drawing him nearer, closer. His hand wavered above the control panel.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” Kes begged, though his hands remained steady, “Please don’t.”

“Why are you doing this?” his mouth was dry, parched, dead, a traitorous thing.

“Because you’re family,” Kes replied, voice breaking.

Cassian turned away.

“My family’s dead.” 

Hollow words.

“No, we’re not.”

“ _ Don’t _ ,” Cassian choked, shaking his head, “Don’t you dare.”

“Why not?” Kes demanded, voice ringing in the empty space, “It’s been eighteen years since you left Scarif. How much longer are you going to carry this around with you?”

“You think I want this?” he said, “This guilt? This  _ responsibility _ ?”

“No one ever said you had to go around living your life for your people. They’re  _ dead _ , Cassian. They’re gone. Nothing you do now can bring them honor or dishonor in the way that we understand.”

“I’m the only one left!” Cassian shouted, “They deserve--”

“--They deserved to live,” Kes snapped, “But they didn’t. You’re just one man. How could you possibly think that they’d blame you for being afraid?”

“I’m not--” Cassian stammered, “I’m not--”

“--All this time,” Kes said, “And I’ve finally figured you out. You’re not an angry man. That’s not why you joined the rebellion--not for revenge and certainly not for hope. You’re just afraid. And I don’t blame you. If I’d had to carry the weight of a million imagined, unwanted expectations every waking moment of my life, I’d be afraid too. And that fear’s what makes you angry, what makes you--go on. You didn’t ask for it, and you definitely don’t deserve it. But now you’ve done exactly what you’ve feared the most from the moment you left Scarif: you’ve let that fear, and not anger, dictate your actions, and it’s gotten someone killed.

Cassian, do you know how many times I’ve made decisions out of fear? I left Naboo because I was afraid. I put my family in danger because I was afraid. For all I know, they could all be dead  _ because I was afraid _ . I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I didn’t tell anyone why. I just ran away. You can’t have the life you used to have on Scarif, Cass. It won’t ever be like that again. This is war. And sometimes, people just die. 

You’re the only one blaming yourself for this.  _ No one else is _ .”

Kes took a step closer. And another.

“Hit that switch and we’re both dead, Cass,” he said quietly. He lowered his blaster, held out a hand. “Come on.”

Cassian stared at his hand, trembling mutely. 

“I don’t want to,” he whispered.

“I know,” Kes replied, “But I do.”

Cassian’s hand was cold, like space.

Kes stepped into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fueled by Tartini. 
> 
> Does anyone actually want an epilogue? It’s written, just didn't quite seem to fit.


	13. Implosion, Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A happy ending?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You asked for it.
> 
> No spoilers.

"Senator Organa,” Cassian said stiffly, “You wished to see me?”

“Ah. Yes,” Bail Organa looked up from his datapad, “Captain Andor. Thank you for coming. Please, have a seat.”

Cassian cautiously entered the senator’s office, back straight, perching on the edge of the single large chair before the large plastisteel desk covered in flimsis and datachips. He noted that the senator must have been spending much more time on Yavin 4 if he’d managed to so thoroughly occupy a space. That left--who? His young daughter? Certainly not--to take charge of the situation in the Senate. Cassian filed this information carefully away, evenly meeting the senator’s evaluating gaze.

Senator Organa set his datapad aside.

“I'm glad to see you recovered,” he said.

“Thank you,” Cassian replied, equally as blandly.

They stared at each other a moment longer.

Senator Organa sighed.

“I asked you here for personal reasons, Captain,” he said wearily, “I hope you don’t mind.”

Cassian blinked.

“Of course not, Senator,” he replied.

The senator steepled his fingers before his face and stared vacantly down at the surface of his desk.

“There are certain things,” he began slowly, “That I have kept from you out of a petty, selfish desire to forget.”

The same sense of _familiarity_ came rushing back, churning, roiling madly. Cassian stiffened.

“If any defense can be made on my part, it wasn’t until your conversation with the captured Imperial officer aboard my ship that I'd had cause to review your personnel file; I've long trusted General Draven to manage matters of Intelligence. Only then did I make the connection between Cassian Jeron Andor, Captain of Intelligence, and Genru Andor, my former aide to the Galactic Senate.”

Silence.

Senator Organa met his gaze with effort, dark eyes heavy with the burden of loss, of guilt.

“I knew your father, Cassian,” he said quietly, “In fact, I knew him quite well.”

Cassian looked away, hands clenched in his lap.

“I was one of the few he told about his decision to leave Alderaan. He’d said there was a fatherless boy and a grieving mother--that they shouldn’t be asked to sacrifice more than they already had for a life of short-lived peace. Cassian,” the senator stopped abruptly, “these are things _I_ feel you should know, to understand the sort of man your father was, things you couldn’t possibly have known or remembered. That doesn’t mean that you need to hear them. I understand the desire to forget.”

“No, please,” Cassian rasped, looking up sharply, “Please.”

Bail Organa sat back slowly in his chair, head sunk to his chest.

“That was the last time I saw him face-to-face,” he continued, after a long period of silence, “Though it certainly was not the last I heard from him. We kept in touch with the occasional holocall, though at that point, the prospect of the galactic war loomed large and made classified communications to Outer Rim territories difficult.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “In the days before the attack--he and I both knew it would happen eventually; Scarif had remained one of the few inhabited planets on the Outer Rim willfully defiant of the Empire--he sent me one last message I didn’t receive until long after the planet had been taken.”

The senator held out a hand. In it sat a datachip.

“I had it saved the moment I saw who had sent it,” he said, “Until recently, I never understood why.”

With a trembling hand, Cassian reached out at took the datachip, clutching it tightly in his fist.

“After all this,” Bail Organa said, “I can only beg your forgiveness.”

* * *

Kes looked up from his holocall when Cassian returned to their quarters.

“Hey,” he said, “How’d it go?”

Dazed, Cassian didn’t reply, seating himself at the desk and fumbling the chip into his holopad.

“Let me call you back,” Kes said behind him, “No, no. He’s fine. Yeah. I’ll let you know. Love you.”

He sensed Kes hovering at his shoulder a moment later.

Cassian ignored him and accessed the data file.

 

His father flickered to life.

Seated at the kitchen table, afternoon light streaking across his face from the high windows, he smiled, brushed long, fair hair from his face. Fiddled with the camera. Sat back down.

_Hey Pres._

His voice--so familiar. So achingly familiar. How could he have forgotten it?

_How’ve you been? Sorry it’s been a while. ‘Koa’s been slaving away at the new shuttleport, and Jer’s been, well, Jer. He’s getting so big, and… I guess it’s getting more and more obvious that I’m not really his father._

A wry smile.

_Yeah, he’s a smart kid, just like his mom._

The smile fell away. Blue eyes darkened in shared pain.

_I’m sorry to hear about Breha--didn’t you always say you two were talking about adopting? Go for it, I say. You two would be the perfect parents. I mean, look at me!_

A bright laugh, unforced.

_How’re things in the Senate? I’m still trying to get ‘Koa to rig up a holonet port for the village, but that just sends her into her whole I’ve-lived-on-an-island-almost-all-my-life-to-get-away-from-that-karking-mess thing. And then I point out that she’s the one in charge of completing the village’s first shuttleport. And then she makes me sleep outside for the night. Not that I mind that, actually. I mean, I understand why she had to leave Carida--well, obviously--and I’m beginning to see why she wanted to leave Alderaan._

His hair kept falling in his face. He shook it back, glancing over his shoulder out the open front door to the blue-green sea and blue-white sky beyond.

_Everything here is still and quiet at nights. There’re no hyperlanes buzzing right outside my window. There’s just the waves a few steps from my front door. Life is simple, and when I’m out on my boat, I feel it even more. There are no politics to fishing. You don’t catch more fish if the fish decide they like you more. The weather doesn’t turn in your favor just because you offered it half a million credits. It’s just me, a man in a boat._

He shrugged, youth tempered by an underlying weary tension.

_I don’t know. I think I’m getting old, hah. Old and nostalgic._

Rustling from the door. A very small silhouette, uncertain, hands thrust in pockets. He turned sharply, relaxed.

_Oh hey, Jer. Wha--Did you get into a fight at school again? Force, Jeron. This has to stop. You can’t just beat everyone who disagrees with you into submission._

A small voice.

_But isn’t that what the Empire does?_

A quick glance at the camera, an arched eyebrow, a muttered oath.

_Force. I’ll be back in a minute._

A flicker, jump of time.

It was night now, a candle guttering off to the side, struggling valiantly in the sea breeze.

He looked tired.

_Sorry about that. Did I mention he’s just like his mom? It makes me laugh sometimes._

A small huff, a twitch of the lips.

_But he doesn’t have to know that._

He sat back in the creaking chair, staring broodingly at the flickering candle.

_I know this is a weird thing for me to say, and let me just start by stating outright that I have absolutely no objective basis for this claim, but… I feel like it’s going to happen soon. You know what I’m talking about. It could be nothing. I mean, I hope it’s nothing, and I hope that your next holo will be of you laughing at me._

_But if not--this has been a long time coming, and I’ve put it off for a while… you know that I’ve always wanted to record something for Jer. He’s got the best shot at making it off Scarif. ‘Koa and I, we--we have a plan. For what to do when they come. Because we know it’ll happen eventually._

He sat forward again with sudden urgency, glancing over his shoulder at the black sea and the black sky beyond.

_Look, ah… I’ll just record it now, and just--keep it safe for me, would you? If the worst does happen, and by some miracle, my--my son lives, I know you’ll find some way to give this to him._

A deep breath.

_Okay._

 

He is on his boat on the sea under the sky. There are small waves. Meeting the boat, they burble and slap a greeting. The oars are shipped, nets trailing over the side.

He looks at the camera, gaze piercing, somber.

 _Hey Jer. It’s me. You’ve no idea how many times I tried to make this. It_ _actually_ \--a small huff-- _feels a little bit weird because you’re mad at me right now for being mad at you about fighting at school again. Remember those days?_

_Anyways. If you’re seeing this, it means that your ma and I are dead. It also means that you’re not._

A familiar crooked smile.

_I know things haven’t always been easy between us. Even though you’re still small--six standard just last month, Force!--I know you’ve always been closer to your ma. You’re both stubborn, hard-headed banthas, you two._

A small smile, a slight shake of the head.

The boat bobs gently.

A pause, deep breath.

_Look, I know that, since you’re watching this, our home is gone, our people are probably dead, and you feel like you’re the only person to have made it off of Scarif. That’s probably all true. But even though Ma and I aren’t there anymore, know that we still love you. We’ve always loved you, and we always will, even when we’re one with the Force._

The horizon bobs, flickers, disappears behind the bow.

_I know it’s hard. And I know this doesn’t compare, but I felt the same leaving Alderaan and coming out here. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t speak the language. There was sand everywhere. The food was weird. I had a boat. I got seasick. In my own boat._

A gentle laugh.

 _But I had your ma, and I had you. I surrounded myself with people I knew and loved, and who I knew loved me back. And, after a while, I didn’t feel so lonely. I learned to trust other people. I learned to trust myself. Most importantly, though--and I_ _know_ _I’m getting old when I find myself saying this--I learned to trust in hope._

_It sounds stupid, I know._

_Trust in hope. Everything is built on hope._

_It won’t always hurt like this, Jer. R_ _emember--we love you, and we miss you... Being your da_ _has been the one of the best parts of the past four years, even though, I'm sure you'll agree, I'm pretty rubbish at it._

The same half-smile.

_We’ll always be watching over you, Jer._

_See you soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along for the ride. 
> 
> I might continue this as a series of loosely-related one-shots set before the events of Rogue One (which had been my original intention), or I might jump onto the AU wagon and belch out yet another disjointed fix-it. Suggestions are, as always, welcome.


	14. Interlude II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shara and Kes meet. 
> 
> Cassian is grumpy. Kes is confused. Shara wishes everyone would just grow up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers.

“So,” Kes said pointedly, staring at the gently swaying, slowly retreating back of his bunkmate’s most recent meal partner, “Who was _that?_ ”

“Shara,” Cassian said around a mouthful of vege-steak. He looked up when Kes failed to plunk his tray down onto the table beside him. “What?”

Kes blinked, shook himself, then creakily settled into his seat.

“Nothing,” he said airily, “I’m surprised I haven’t met her before is all, since, you know, you and I sort of bunk together.”

“She just got back from temporary assignment to the Mid Rim.”

“Ah. Okay. So, uh, what’s she do?”

“She’s a pilot.”

“Really?” Kes said, turning to search in vain for the swaying, retreating back through the crowd.

“A-wings, yeah.”

Kes nibbled thoughtfully at his bread-puff.

“Pilot. I’m not surprised. Seems like your type.”

It was Cassian’s turn to blink in confusion. He squinted at Kes.

“She’s my cousin,” he said irritably, “I don’t know what you’re implying--”

“--oh, Sith,” Kes muttered, flushing, “I didn’t know. Fark. _Fark_. Sorry.”

Cassian snorted, turning back to his food.

Kes craned his neck, searching again for another glimpse.

“Do I have to repeat myself?” Cassian asked, swallowing the last of his vege-steak, “She’s my _cousin_.”

Kes snapped his head around so quickly his neck cracked.

“Yeah?” he winced. A thought occurred to him. “Wait,” he demanded as Cassian stood to leave, “She’s your cousin?”

Cassian stared at him.

“Yes,” he replied flatly.

“You have a _family!?_ ” Kes exclaimed, feigning surprise.

Cassian shrugged, expression shuttered. He gathered his tray.

“That means you can introduce us, right?” Kes called after him.

Cassian, striding away, shoved his middle finger into the air.

* * *

“So,” Shara said, handing Cassian the hydrospanner, “I heard you got a new bunkmate.”

Cassian, up past his shoulders in the belly of her A-wing’s engine well, grunted, “No, I said the Harris, not the hydrospanner.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Shara dropped the hydrospanner back into its bin and prodded Cassian’s shoulder with the Harris wrench, “Here.”

Cassian grunted again and lunged deeper into the bowels of her ship.

Shara leaned up against a wing.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“What?” Cassian grunted.

“Your bunkmate,” Shara said, “What’s his name?”

A sharp _ping_ , followed by a satisfying _clang_.

Cassian staggered back out of the engine well and leapt up to the cockpit, flicking some switches, one eye on the diagnostics pad.

“Cassian?” Shara repeated.

“It should be fine now,” he said, hopping down and handing her the pad.

Shara rolled her eyes.

“There was nothing wrong with it to begin with, you showoff,” she muttered, snatching the pad out of his hands, “But thanks anyways.”

Cassian smiled crookedly at her, wiping his hands on his shirt, which he’d tied around his waist in a rare concession to both the crushing humidity of Yavin 4 and the mid-afternoon emptiness of the hangar.

“Well?” Shara prompted, making a show of looking through the diagnostics.

“Hmm?” Cassian frowned, coming to stand directly beside her, peering over her shoulder at the pad.

Shara narrowed her eyes at him.

 _Force_ , she thought, _He really has no clue_.

“I’d like to meet your bunkmate,” she said blandly, “You can introduce us, right?”

Cassian continued frowning at the pad in her hands, his breath hot and heavy on her neck. Then her words registered.

“You-- _what?_ ” he snapped, eyes wide.

Shara nearly died laughing.

Cassian glared at her.

“Sorry,” she snorted, struggling to control herself, “I just had to.”

Cassian heaved a dramatic sigh, turning it into a vaguely melodramatic head toss as he pushed sweaty hair out of his eyes. Shara grinned at him, and he unbent enough to huff a small laugh.

“Shara Bey,” he muttered under his breath, shaking his head, trying to hide a smile in his mustache.

She nudged him with her hip, eyebrows raised.

“Would you?” she asked.

“Are you _serious_?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she shrugged, “I’ll have to meet him eventually, since you two are literally sleeping on top of each other. And I’m curious.”

“Curious,” Cassian repeated flatly.

“Yeah,” Shara replied, “He’s lasted, what, three months? That’s a record, isn’t it?”

Cassian shot her a look that might have been venomous were it not for the irrepressible glint of mischief in his eyes.

“It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind,” he said.

“That’s right,” she said, hands on her hips, “I’m a grown woman, Cassian. Older than you, might I add, and definitely old enough to make my own decisions.”

Cassian held out both hands in a placating gesture, though there was no heat behind her words.

“Alright, alright,” he said, lips twitching, “Lunch tomorrow?”

“Done,” Shara replied.

Cassian heaved another deep sigh, hands on hips, mirroring her stance. He cocked his head.

“Have you ever considered going into intelligence?” he asked, “You’re very stubborn.”

“I prefer to shoot at things I haven’t seen face-to-face,” she replied bluntly, “so no.”

Cassian nearly winced. Shara didn’t apologize.

“Hey, Captain Intelligence,” she said.

Cassian arched an eyebrow.

“You should probably put that shirt back on. Wouldn’t want to have any more _introductions_ on your plate, would we?”

A passing group of very young recruits tittered, openly ogling Cassian as they scurried by on their way to an afternoon training session.

Cassian swore, flushing a very delicate pink as he snatched his shirt from his waist. Shara laughed again, tugging the shirt over his head when he became hopelessly ensnarled in a jumble of sleeves.

“I’m going to go, uh, wash up,” he said under his breath.

Shara was still laughing.

“ _Stop that_ ,” he hissed, looking nervously over his shoulder.

Shara didn’t.

“See you tomorrow at lunch!” she called to his quickly retreating back.

Cassian shoved a finger into the air.

* * *

Just before lunch hour the next day, Kes and Shara each received an individual, private message on their respective datapads.

_Sorry. Off-planet, return TBD._

Kes chewed at a hangnail, then went down to the mess.

Shara sat in her quarters and worried.

* * *

Two days after Kes had found himself named to Extraction Team Bravo, and nearly two weeks after his bunkmate had disappeared off the face of the planet, Cassian staggered through the door to their quarters, gaunt and hollow-eyed, and promptly collapsed face-first onto the worn stone floor.

Kes swore, leaping from his bed. He waved the lights to full brightness and carefully rolled his bunkmate onto his back.

“Hey,” he said, patting Cassian’s cheek lightly, “Hey. Cassian. Can you hear me?”

Cassian stirred, eyelids fluttering.

“‘M fine,” he slurred, “Just tired.”

“No, you’re not fine,” Kes snapped, pressing a hand to Cassian’s forehead, “You need to get down to medbay.”

He tugged Cassian to his feet, swearing loudly again when the man collapsed limply against him.

“A little help here,” Kes gritted, snatching Cassian around the waist before he could crumple to the floor again, “You’re scaring me a little.”

Cassian didn’t reply.

“Fine,” Kes grunted, bending his knees and heaving Cassian over a shoulder.

He staggered out the door and straight into a tall, thin woman who swore more violently than he had.

“Here, let me help,” she said, “Get him under the arms. I’ll get his legs.”

Together, they made it down to the medbay where, to Kes’s surprise, they found a medi-bed and an FX unit waiting. He followed the medical droids as they whisked his bunkmate away.

“Is he going to be okay?” he demanded, “What’s wrong with him?”

A gentle hand on his arm pulled him back.

“He’ll be fine.”

He turned to the woman who had helped him and froze.

“Shara,” he said dumbly.

She cocked her head, arched an eyebrow.

“Kes Dameron,” she said.

His brain short-circuited.

“Yeah,” he said, staring.

“Lieutenant Shara Bey,” she said, sticking her hand out with a smirk, “I’m Cassian’s cousin.”

“Yeah,” Kes repeated, “I’m--” he shook himself, “I’m his bunkmate.”

“Yeah,” Shara parroted, eyes gleaming.

Kes forced himself to look away, back in the direction in which his delirious bunkmate had disappeared.

“Is he--”

“--He’ll be fine,” Shara repeated, also looking away, shoulders tense, “He looked like death at the debriefing, but he was still coherent, so it can’t be anything too serious, probably just picked up some sort of flu or something. The gundark.”

Kes glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

“You say that like this happens pretty regularly.”

Shara shrugged, and Kes noticed the pilot’s helmet strapped to her belt.

“You were his exfil,” he said.

Shara looked at him sharply.

“I heard you were quick,” she said.

Kes shrugged, mimicking her nonchalance.

“Want me to grab anything from the mess for you?” he asked, “You must be starving.”

“No, thanks.” Shara shook her head and sank wearily into a chair. “I’ll just wait until they’re done pumping him full of stims or whatever. Hopefully, he won’t have to stay overnight. He hates it here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Kes sat down next to her.

Shara looked over at him.

“I didn’t say that to make you stay,” she said.

“I know,” Kes replied, staring straight ahead.

* * *

Cassian ended up spending a week in the quarantine ward of the medbay, having found himself unwilling host to an obscure strain of the Gobindi virus which, while not exactly life-threatening, left him both delirious and violently ill for the better part of two weeks. Shara and Kes visited as much as they could after he had been released to the main wing, staying late into the night, occasionally taking turns sleeping in the empty med-bed in the partitioned space, switching off when it came time for dawn shift to report.

More often than not, it was one of them that shook Cassian out of another terrible apparition from his past, which, Kes was learning, made his own history as a intergalactic fugitive appear as trite as a budget holonova.

It was after one of these blood-curdling episodes that Shara Bey looked at him in the dim half-light of the medbay and said, “I like you, Kes.”

“Huh?” he replied.

Shara smiled and looked down at his hand, clutched in Cassian’s.

* * *

Cassian looked at them crossly a few days after his fever had abated from brain-boiling levels to acceptable delirium.

“You two,” he said.

“Yeah,” Shara said, “Sorry.”

“Huh?” Kes said.

Cassian glared at him.

“What?” Kes asked, looking from Cassian to Shara and back.

Cassian snorted, fixing the wall behind Shara with a distinctly unfocused look.

“Don’t start,” she said.

“Mmm,” Cassian grunted, closing his eyes, “Just… go somewhere else. Please.”

“What?” Kes repeated.

Cassian pretended to be asleep.

Shara looked at Kes and said, loudly, “I like you, Kes.”

Cassian groaned.

“Uh,” Kes said, “I like you too.”

“No,” Shara repeated, “I _like_ you, Kes.”

Kes stared at her.

He opened his mouth. No sound emerged.

“Sith hells,” Cassian swore, eyes flying open, “ _Really?_ After all this time?”

Kes swallowed.

“‘All this time, huh?’” Shara said, eyebrow raised.

“Oh, fark,” Kes said intelligently.

* * *

“Okay,” Cassian said, pacing back and forth beside Kes’s bed, “Some ground rules.”

“What are you, her _dad!?_ ” Kes spluttered, “She’s just your _cousin_ , not--not your daughter!”

“ _She_ is sitting right next to you,” Shara said archly, looking up from her datapad, “And _she_ can speak for herself.”

Cassian snorted, that same fond smile creeping over his face. Kes had marveled at that the first time Shara had made him laugh, at the sudden warmth in his expression. He’d never thought Cassian could look--happy.

“Yes,” Cassian said, head inclined graciously, “There are more practical, rather than… personal, reasons.”

Kes sobered immediately.

“This isn’t… allowed, is it?” he asked.

“Strictly speaking, no,” Cassian said after a pause. Then he shrugged. “But we’re a rebellion.”

“Okay…” Kes trailed off, watching Cassian deepen the grooves in the cool stone floor, “Then what--”

“ _\--Respect_ ,” Cassian blurted, entirely out of character, “You treat her with respect, do you understand?”

Kes blinked, nonplussed.

“Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, of course.”

“No matter what, yes?” Cassian demanded, hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets.

“Of _course_. Cassian, what do you take me for--”

Shara put a hand on his arm, an unreadable look in her dark eyes.

“You hurt her, you do anything to her--” Cassian stopped himself abruptly, staring at the floor, shoulders tense.

“I get it, Cassian,” Kes said carefully.

“Because she’s _family_ ,” Cassian said, whip-sharp, cracking bleakly in the silence, “And family is... precious.”

Shara’s grip on Kes’s arm was painfully tight. Kes said nothing.

Cassian took a deep breath and looked Kes straight in the eye.

“Yes?” he said.

Kes swallowed. Dry.

“Yeah,” he replied.

Cassian jerked a nod.

“Good,” he said.

His gaze slid away, and he fidgeted minutely before, without another word, striding for the door, keying open the controls, and exiting into the corridor beyond.

Kes looked down at Shara. Her eyes were bright.

“I feel like I'm missing something,” he said.

“We all are,” she replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: That AU one-shot collection is 70% going to be a real thing.


	15. Beginnings, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian at the turning of a new year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers.

He’s lost so much.

Every year, every night, he remembers. Sometimes, there are just voices, echoing through the uncertain passage of time, unwanted reminders. Sometimes, there are faces. There are always memories.

He takes another sip, lets the whiskey burn its way down his throat into his stomach, coiling, restless, an unsettled beast.

Somewhere in the fog, there is an apology.

* * *

The man’s name was Draven, or so he had claimed.

It had been a while since Cassian had taken a stranger’s words for truth.

Especially when that stranger had him at blasterpoint.

“What do you want?” he demanded, hands in the air, back pressed to his last dead-end alley.

“Just a talk,” Draven said, standing a carefully-calculated distance away, blaster hand steady.

“You have nothing I want to hear,” Cassian spat, “Republic _shavit_.”

Draven eyed him mildly.

“You’re not from around here, are you,” he said conversationally.

“What does that matter?”

“I haven’t heard an accent like yours in years. Scarif, isn’t it?”

Cassian snarled, lunging through the slush at this impeccably groomed man whose very bearing shrieked of institutionalized militarism.

Draven stepped aside, and, with a casual backhand, sent him to the ground.

“There were rumors of survivors,” he continued evenly, “But you’re the first I’ve met.” He looked down his nose at Cassian, who struggled to his feet, breathing heavily, glowering. “You must have been very young when Imperial forces arrived. Certainly too young to join an interplanetary insurrection. And yet, here we are.”

“No one’s too young to fight,” Cassian snapped, dark eyes blazing.

“Do you even know what you’re fighting _for_?” Draven shot back, blaster lowered, hands clasped behind his back.

“Freedom,” Cassian returned heatedly, “Personal rights. Integrity.”

“Yes,” Draven replied, “But what do those _mean?_ ”

Cassian glared at him.

“It means we get to choose when and where we have to care about things. It means we don’t have to watch people die just because somebody thought they had to, or if somebody _else_ didn’t care enough to help!”

Draven eyed him levelly. The snow started again.

“You don’t actually believe that, do you,” he said.

“It’s war,” Cassian replied, withdrawing abruptly, crossing his arms and refusing to shiver, “No one believes anything anymore.”

* * *

“He’s a _child_ , Davits,” Mon Mothma said under her breath.

“No, he’s not,” Draven replied, shrugging out of his coat, “Age means nothing on Fest.”

Mon Mothma didn’t sigh, merely let her heart grow heavier.

“You said he knows Travia Chan?” she asked, shifting the burden.

“She’s the closest thing he has to family,” Draven confirmed, moving to her side and watching as she skimmed through his meager dossier on the young firebrand from Fest.

She paused when she came across his notes on the boy’s homeworld.

“Are you sure?” she asked, looking up in surprise.

Draven nodded.

“If you'd heard him speak, there would be no doubt.”

“How did he escape?”

Draven shrugged.

“Probably stowed away on an Imperial ship.” He recalled the boy’s carefully-calculated shifts in demeanor, from wild-eyed youth to world-weary rebel. “He’s quick.”

“Do we know anything about his family?”

“We’re not a humanitarian cause, Senator,” Draven said stiffly. At her look, he relented, shaking his head. “I have nothing. He won’t even give me his full name, and no one really seems to know what it actually is.”

“Cassian,” Mon Mothma murmured to herself.

“It was a common enough name,” Draven said, “But it could also be an alias. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“And you’re sure he can handle this?” the senator forced herself to ask.

Draven shrugged again, and if she hadn’t known him so well, Mon Mothma would have mistaken the gesture for callous indifference.

“He’ll manage,” Draven said.

* * *

Very few people ever discovered that the Atrivis Sector Force had been initiated by a fifteen-year-old boy from an orphaned world.

* * *

Cassian rested his face in his hand, elbow propped up on the empty bar, absently rubbing the stubble that had come in thick and dark. He was nearly seventeen now, nearly a man by the old laws. He reached over the bar and fumbled around for another jug of whiskey and came up with Alderaanian ale instead. He popped the cork and took a sniff.

His father had been from Alderaan.

He slammed the jug back down and stared at the gently swaying surface of the bar, trying to muster the coordination to stagger back to his quarters.

Just as he slid from the stool, a cool, gentle hand landed on his arm.

Jerking away reflexively, he pressed himself back up against the bar.

“Cassian,” Mon Mothma said.

“Senator,” he slurred, stilling, “I apologize.”

“Won’t you come join the new year celebrations?” she asked tactfully, graciously ignoring his current state of complete and utter inebriation, “You are missed.”

Cassian snorted, hauling himself back onto his stool.

“I don’t see the point in celebrating,” he muttered, lunging over the bar again and finding the Corellian brandy this time. He snatched up a spare glass and set it down with slightly more force than necessary on the bar beside him. “Drink?” he asked, certain of the answer.

“Thank you,” the senator said, gracefully seating herself beside him.

Cassian blinked, thoughts entirely transparent, then poured two generous measures, leaving the bottle uncapped beside him. He held up his glass.

“To another year,” he said caustically.

Mon Mothma inclined her head and touched her glass to his.

Cassian drained his in one go and sloppily sloshed another few fingers into his glass.

“I wanted to thank you for your work on Fest,” the senator said, “Without your assistance, I have no doubt negotiations would still be ongoing.”

Cassian shrugged.

“Nepotism,” he enunciated carefully, “Travia was never going to refuse.”

“You or the Alliance?” Senator Mothma probed shrewdly.

Cassian shrugged again.

“Does it matter?”

He stared broodingly into his glass again, hair falling into his face, pricking his eyes.

“General Draven and I have been compiling potential candidates for commanding positions in the new sector force,” the senator said.

Cassian grunted and didn’t lift his eyes from the table.

“We want you to take command of the battalion on Fest.”

Cassian jerked his head up and stared at her.

“Me,” he said.

Mon Mothma nodded.

“You’re more familiar with the planet than anyone else in the Alliance,” she explained, “And I thought you might want to stay on Fest, at least for the near future.”

Cassian blinked blearily at her.

“Well,” he said, turning back to his drink, “If that’s what you want.”

“No,” the senator said sharply, “This is your decision.”

“I’ve been fighting for over ten years,” Cassian returned bitterly, “Why stop now?”

Senator Mothma drained the last of her brandy.

“Alright,” she said, as if she hadn’t expected anything else, “I will inform General Draven.”

She stood to leave.

Cassian swiveled around to watch her.

“We’re going to need your full name, for administrative reasons,” she said neutrally.

Cassian thought about Carida. He remembered Scarif. Considered lying.

“Andor,” he said soberly, “My name is Cassian--” he stuttered, hesitated, “Cassian Andor.”

Mon Mothma inclined her head graciously.

“Thank you, Captain Andor,” she said. Then, more quietly, “Welcome to the Rebellion.”

She turned and strode away, leaving something warm coiling in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Status Update:  
> That AU series is currently a two-shot and will probably be going up Monday night. I'll post it separately as Part 2 of this series since it'll build on the backstory I've developed here, with one obvious exception.
> 
> This story is currently at eighteen chapters and counting, but I sense an end somewhere in the distant future. The moment I write a chapter that doesn't end in unresolved doom and gloom, I'm going to call it quits (so it might be a while yet).


	16. Beginnings, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian meets Bail Organa, and it's a study in regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers.
> 
> Prompt from AgentERA.

Winters on Fest arrived with little perceptible change to the general atmosphere of arse-numbing frigidity, which was, as always, several requisite wampa-hide coats below freezing. Maybe the snow fell a little thicker, a little faster. Maybe the days were a little shorter. But mostly, winters on Fest were like springs and summers and autumns on Fest--hard and dull, but for the bite of cold.

Cassian chafed his hands together irritably and stamped his feet, sheltering from the wind just inside the bulk of the main hangar door, which, predictably, had frozen open on the first of the year and hadn’t shut since. He squinted out through the snow, which blew nearly horizontally, tearing up huge flurries that lingered for one breathless moment before scattering again into the murky gloom. Shivering convulsively, he scuttled back to the relative warmth of the comms center, poking his head in at the door.

“How much longer?” he demanded roughly in a voice that had only just broken a few months ago.

“They said they were two minutes out,” Tantim replied blandly, lifting one earphone of her headset to reply, “They’ll be here any minute, Cassian. It’s just gusty out, and you know how offworlders get.”

Cassian snorted and leaned against the doorjamb, blowing on his hands.

Tantim wrinkled her nose.

“Come in or stay out,” she said, “But shut the door.”

Cassian hesitated, looking over his shoulder at the empty snow. He stepped inside, shut the door. Almost immediately, the hangar klaxon blared, signalling an incoming ship. He groaned, and Tantim laughed, nudging him out of their closet of a comms center.

Cassian hurried outside, slamming the door behind him, and snatched up his landing batons, smacking them against his leg when they refused to light up. He sprinted out to the landing pad, nearly tumbled over in a particularly vicious gust, and righted himself just in time to guide the sleek, unmarked cruiser to a relatively smooth landing. By the time they’d taxied into the hangar, he was nearly frozen solid and deactivated his batons with another whack that slivered the ice on his trousers.

The cruiser’s access hatch opened, retractable steps unfolded, and a tall, slender woman with unnaturally bright hair descended, followed directly by an equally tall, careworn man, cloak thrown over his shoulder.

Cassian trotted up to greet them.

“Senator,” he said to the woman, “Welcome to Fest.”

Several of the other ground crew jogged past him and began hitching lines to tow the ship to a subsidiary hangar where, presumably, it would not freeze solid.

“Cassian,” Senator Mothma said in some surprise, looking down her nose at him, “It’s good to finally meet you in person.”

Cassian nodded stiffly, skin crawling in the presence of such a prominent figure of the Republic.

Senator Mothma turned to the man beside her.

“This is Senator Bail Organa, of Alderaan,” she said, “I don’t believe you two have met.”

“No,” Cassian said shortly, warily stepping forward to take the man’s hand.

“I’ve heard we have you to thank for initiating negotiations,” Senator Organa said, his voice mild, rich, slightly accented, “The rebellion is in your debt.”

If he was perturbed by addressing a boy of hardly fifteen standard, he gave no indication.

Cassian shrugged, stepping back. The senator’s hand had been warm, large, callused.

“Don’t thank me yet.” He looked past them at the cruiser. “I’ll have your things brought to your quarters. Travia would like to meet immediately. If you would follow me.”

He jerked his chin and turned, leading the way out of the hangar, forcing cold-stiffened legs to creak along smoothly, refusing to shiver.

In the ‘lift, he addressed Senator Mothma, saying, “I’m surprised General Draven is not with you.”

Senator Organa shifted beside him, hands clasped deep in the folds of his elegantly rich cloak that had likely cost more than the entirety of Cassian’s belongings.

“He was detained on Chandrila by some rather unforeseen circumstances,” Senator Mothma replied smoothly, “He greatly regrets his absence.”

By that, Cassian knew she meant Draven would not be participating in negotiations--no surprise, given the man’s near-deluded paranoia. What was more interesting was that it appeared he had been stiff-armed out of the negotiations by the man standing in the ‘lift with them now. Cassian snorted to himself. The Rebel Alliance, already fractured. Typical Republican politics.

He motioned the senators out of the lift before him.

“Travia’s waiting just in here,” he said, leading them to a closed conference room door.

He hesitated, briefly, hand hovering above the access panel.

Without making eye contact, he said, to the wall, “Speak carefully in there. I’ve done what I can, but Travia keeps her own counsel.”

Before either had a chance to reply, he opened the door and led the way in, back stiff, chin held high.

“Commander,” he addressed the woman at the head of the table, “Senators Mothma and Organa. Senators,” He turned back to the senators, who stood just inside the door, “Commander Chan, her Chief of Staff Loom Carplin--” he indicated the scruffy man seat to Travia’s right, “--and his assistant, Busurra,” he indicated the massive Wookie seated beside Loom, an eyepatch over his right eye, “Please,” he indicated the empty half of the conference table, “Have a seat.”

He took a seat himself just behind Travia’s repulsorchair and melted, unobtrusively, into the shadows.

* * *

The preliminary block of negotiations, unsurprisingly, lasted the entirety of two weeks, day and night. Travia Chan had brought Fest and Mantooine together, and it was not from an overabundance of impatience. Neither, however, was it from an overabundance of caution. The seeds of doubt had been quietly planted-- _could the Republic possibly be worse than the Empire?_ \--and Travia had never been one to cling to the old ways in the face of rapidly-changing circumstances.

Still, it was a surprise when, over a hasty lunch break towards the end of the two-week marathon, she said to Cassian, who had been earnestly impressing upon her their absolute _need_ for starfighter protection, “You know I’ve already made up my mind.”

Cassian dropped his sandwich to the table.

“And you’re telling me this _now?_ ” he demanded, exasperated, voice falling heavily in the deserted conference room, “Fark, what changed?”

“Language, Cassian,” Travia frowned, lips twitching in amusement. She drank her soup peaceably. “After Mantooine, I’d known the rebellion would reach out to us in the near term. Desperation makes allies of old enemies.”

“But--” Cassian, frustrated, gestured violently with a hand, “But we’re Separatists. We fought against the Republic. I thought you’d never just--” he struggled for words, “--just, I don’t know, _change your mind_.”

“We were _occupied_ by Separatists,” Travia corrected, “And at the time, there was no other option but to support them.”

“But you never did,” Cassian concluded flatly, “You never _really_ did.”

Travia gazed at him shrewdly.

“We supported freedom from corruption, freedom to maintain our way of life,” she said, “Here in the Outer Rim, it seemed the Republic, under Palpatine, was doing its best to take that away from us. So we supported anything that was against it. But isn’t it obvious now that his actions weren’t representative at all of the Republic? He _is_ the one that’s calling himself Emperor now.”

These were things that Cassian had long considered but never voiced. He plucked off a piece of crust from his bread and rolled it between his fingers.

“So you changed your mind,” he repeated.

“Cassian,” Travia sighed, “There are far worse things to do than admit you were wrong.”

* * *

“You said that General Draven found him?” Bail Organa said, over a similarly rushed midday meal in his quarters, “What in Force’s name led him to _Fest_?”

Mon Mothma shook her head, sipping at some form of nearly-frozen tea.

“He never told me,” she replied.

Bail took that to mean-- _you don’t want to know_.

“He’s very young,” he said.

Mon Mothma nearly sighed.

“I said the same when Davits first brought him to me. He’d be about fifteen standard now, if what we know is correct.”

“And--” Bail hesitated here, reluctant to face the past, yet morbidly curious, “--he’s from Scarif.”

Mon Mothma looked at him sharply. She hadn’t given him Cassian’s file, apologetically maintaining the boy’s confidence, the blessedly sincere woman.

“I recognize the accent,” he said, as casually as he could manage, “I was familiar with the planet.”

“Genru,” Mon Mothma said, after a significant pause, another apology on her lips. Apologies, apologies, so many of them, flying thick and fast as the snow outside.

Bail nodded stiffly, distantly remembering grainy holovids, the gentle whisper of waves on a forgotten shore.

“Do you know if--” he began, cut himself off, shook his head, closing the door, “Forget I said anything.”

Twenty years ago, they had been friends, and she would have laid a hand on his arm, but the war had taught them that friendships of that past golden age were best forgotten, lest current times tarnish burnished memory. He couldn’t blame her for withdrawing, so he bore his burden in silence.

“I am sorry,” she said instead.

* * *

“He’s a fine young man,” Travia said late that night, long after nearly everyone had retired to their quarters.

Bail, slouched on the couch in the conference room where they had been reviewing agricultural reports from the sector, looked up with a start from his datapad at this non-sequitur.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, wondering blearily whether or not he’d accidentally dropped off mid-conversation.

“You’ve had your eye on him since you arrived,” Travia continued, leaning forward in her repulsorchair.

“He is very young,” Bail repeated, leaving a hundred questions unasked.

“Age means nothing,” Travia replied, fixing him with her keen gaze, “He’s withstood things men twice his age could not.”

“How long have you known him?” he asked, since that appeared to be the direction in which the conversation was headed. Curious responsibility itched at him, spurring him on.

“Since he was a boy.”

“You raised him.”

Travia shrugged.

“He raised himself.”

“Scarif.”

“I’m surprised a Core Worlder would be familiar with Scarif.”

“I had friends--a friend.”

Travia’s eyes gleamed.

“So your interest is personal, is it?”

Bail set his datapad down.

“I understand my role here,” he said, “And I understand the role you’ve cast for me, but it is of my volition that I must ask if there are any other survivors.”

Travia leaned back in her repulsorchair, as if satisfied.

“How the Republic has changed,” she said quietly.

Bail blinked, entirely lost.

“No,” Travia said, after a brooding silence, “I have neither found nor heard of any other survivors from Scarif.”

“Do you--” Bail choked on his words, forced them out, crushing hope, “--Do you know what his name--his full name--is?”

“I am sorry, Senator,” Travia replied, “I do not.”

Doubly bitter, Bail turned away.

“He deserves better,” Travia said into his defeat, “Better than he will find here.”

Bail turned quickly, gaze sharp, inquisitive.

“I think, Senator,” Travia continued, “That you would agree.”

* * *

One year and many fraught negotiations later, having certainly learned that Travia Chan did, indeed, keep her own counsel, they convened again in the considerably warmer summer of Generis and signed into existence the Treaty of Generis, which officially aligned the Atrivis Resistance Group with the budding Rebel Alliance.

A familiar face, though now over a head taller, dogged every meeting, sitting between Loom Carplin, whose mouth was much faster than his hair-trigger blaster finger, and Travia Chan, quietly murmuring advice, voraciously learning, intensity in his dark eyes.

Bail Organa called him over in the hangar after the signed treaties had been sent to their respective councils, feeling warm and satisfied, buoyed by this small measure of success in an increasingly desperate fight.

“Senator Organa,” Cassian said politely, hands clasped behind his back. Still stick-thin, hair falling boyishly into his eyes, there nevertheless was a weary air of purpose about him that had been noticeably lacking all those months ago on Fest.

“I wanted to thank you, again, for your help,” Bail said.

“Of course, Senator,” Cassian replied, adding drily, “I’m sure we’re both glad to see negotiations come to an end.”

“Indeed,” Bail smiled, “What are your plans, now that this is finished?”

Cassian arched an eyebrow, clearly not following his line of thought, but replied easily, “I’ll be staying here on Generis with Travia until I’m needed on Fest.”

“I ask,” Bail continued, “because I find myself in need of an aide in the Senate, and given the ability you displayed during these negotiations, I would greatly value your assistance.”

Cassian stared at him, clearly processing, eyes sharp.

“You want me to be your Rebel spy in the Senate,” Cassian said drily, at last. He glanced over his shoulder at Travia, who pointedly ignored him. “I’m sorry, Senator, but my responsibility remains here.”

Bail really hadn’t expected anything else.

“I understand,” he said easily, reaching up and clasping a shoulder. Cassian blinked at him, sensing, somehow, the weight of what had remained unsaid, “I wish you all the best. May the Force be with you.”

“And with you,” Cassian replied automatically.

Bail turned and climbed into his cruiser. He didn’t look back, but in the cockpit, as the hangar fell away below him, he watched, through the transparisteel windscreen, as Cassian returned to Travia’s side and placed a hand on the back of her repulsorchair. Something hard rose in his chest, a certain self-loathing, and he wheeled sharply in the sky, leaving Generis behind.

* * *

Down on the ferrocrete landing pad, Travia shook her head and watched the ship disappear.

“Cassian Andor,” she said, heart heavy, “Your loyalty will be the death of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts two and three of the (overall) series are now up.


End file.
